Lord of the Sea Castle

by Edward Ruadh Butler

  ‘Ferrand! Are you alright?’ Raymond called desperately as his small shieldwall disintegrated. He heard no response and Raymond dared not turn to see if Ferrand still lived for another warrior had pulled the axe from where it was buried in the ground and now threatened him alongside the younger man armed with the spear.

  The axeman struck first, shouting a challenge as he hooked the blade over the top rim of Raymond’s shield and attempted to rip it from his grasp. By his side, the spearman waited for an opening to stab the Norman’s defenceless midriff.

  ‘Ferrand!’ Raymond appealed again as he fought the weight coming onto his left arm. He knew that he could not lose his shield, nor could he stab at his assailant lest the other man spear him in his undefended flank. Both his arms quivered with effort, his left from exertion, the other from yearning to attack.

  Suddenly a high-pitched scream sounded from his side and a slight figure bounded past Raymond to plant a bloody dagger in the axeman’s upper arm. The pressure immediately relented as the Ostman fell to the floor in agony, but Raymond didn’t give the second warrior a chance to gain an advantage and gave him two huge sword cuts which forced him backwards into the crush of his crewmen. He then turned and stabbed downwards to take the axeman’s life.

  ‘I told you to run!’ he shouted as he pulled Geoffrey of Abergavenny to his feet, forcing him behind him again. The boy was pale but he stooped to pick up a fallen spear.

  ‘I’m your esquire,’ Geoffrey exclaimed. He had to yell in order to make himself heard over the noise coming from the Ostmen. ‘I should be at your side when you go into battle.’

  ‘This isn’t a battle,’ Ferrand hissed as he righted himself beside Raymond. ‘It is a damned street brawl.’ He noticed his captain’s apprehensive glance at his shoulder where blood was seeping through the links in his coat of steel. ‘I’ll be fine. I could fight on all day,’ he insisted, but his hand went briefly to the wound.

  Raymond knew that they could not hold off the Ostmen for much longer. Though it felt like hours, they had only been fighting for a matter of minutes and Raymond could see that Ferrand was tiring. There were simply too many for two men, one a leper, and an esquire to fight. He glanced past Geoffrey to where, thirty paces away, the last of his conrois and archers were finally disappearing through the inner gates to the relative safety beyond.

  ‘Geoffrey, go now before the gates close,’ he ordered, but the boy refused to budge. Raymond looked over his shoulder at him. ‘I need you to make sure that the gates will be closed and that no one keeps them open to wait for Ferrand and me. Go!’

  But instead of running to the salvation of the bailey Geoffrey’s eyes widened in alarm forcing Raymond to recognise another threat approached him down the path between the fortifications.

  ‘Go!’ he told his esquire again before hefting his weapons and turning to meet the next charge of the Ostmen. Instead only one man approached. Jarl Sigtrygg did not run but stared menacingly at the two Normans who blocked his path. Raymond felt Ferrand tense at his side. Even the Ostmen of Veðrarfjord had quieted as they watched their giant leader walk forward. They expected to see him sweep aside the stubborn resistance of the Normans and lead them in an attack on the inner walls of Dun Domhnall. However, rather than attack he put his hand to his ear and arched his neck as if listening to the wooden fortification to his left.

  ‘Do you hear that sound?’ Jarl Sigtrygg asked and, for the first time since the fight between the walls of Dun Domhnall had begun, Raymond noticed shouting and the thump of feet coming from beyond the outer defences. ‘That is the sound of eight hundred of Veðrarfjord’s best warriors marching towards your little fort,’ Jarl Sigtrygg told the three Normans, his braided beard curling into a smile. ‘They are coming to kill you and the sick man. Then we will storm the gates and kill all inside.’ He dropped his hand and took his axe from his belt, tossing it into the air before catching it and pointing it at Raymond. ‘The good news is that you will not have to see any of that,’ he sneered as he brought his shield up to eye level and stared malevolently over its rim at his enemy. ‘Time to die, Raymond the Fat,’ Sigtrygg shouted at his opponent and that was the signal for six spears to be launched from the crowd behind the jarl. Two soared overhead but the rest struck their target, forcing Ferrand and Raymond to raise their shields to defend themselves from the projectiles.

  Jarl Sigtrygg reacted immediately, using the brief distraction to jump forward and smash his shield boss into Raymond’s. Jarl Sigtrygg’s frenzied axe attack did not allow the Norman captain a chance to hit back. Instead Raymond crouched, protecting his head, with both hands pressed against the back of his teardrop shield and his cheeks puffing with effort. The weight of the giant jarl was like that of a stampeding bullock as he attempted to trample Raymond into the ground.

  A second man, wearing a bright orange woollen shirt, joined his jarl, colliding with Ferrand as the leper raised his sword arm to slash at Jarl Sigtrygg’s head. The blow missed its target as Ferrand was rocked back on his heels and into Geoffrey who, having speared Sigtrygg’s crewman in the shoulder, was knocked aside in a tangle of bodies. Raymond was almost taken down by his fellows, but he kept his feet as Geoffrey, Ferrand and the injured Ostman tumbled into his legs. Jarl Sigtrygg’s onslaught continued and he was keening now, cursing Raymond for his timidity. The Norman could hear the Ostmen of Veðrarfjord begin to roar their support for their jarl, urging him to lead them to victory.

  ‘Come on,’ Jarl Sigtrygg shouted. ‘Come out from behind that shield!’ A massive set of fingers appeared and gripped the top of Raymond’s shield close to his head.

  He knew what was about to happen; that Sigtrygg would force the top of his shield down and deliver a killing blow to his head with the axe. And he could tell that the jarl was stronger than he. Raymond’s head shook and his vision swirled as he gripped his teeth and clung onto the straps pinned to the back of his shield with both his hands, but nothing he did could turn the fight in his favour. The inevitability of Jarl Sigtrygg’s victory over him forced a roar of frustration and effort from his throat. But in that second, an idea came to him. He acted upon it immediately. He simply let go.

  What happened next was a blur. Raymond was aware that he had fallen backwards and that his temple had cracked onto something hard as he had landed. Punch-drunk, he knew that he had to rise and finish Jarl Sigtrygg before his enemy had the chance to recover and do the same to him. But his legs would not respond and he toppled to his knees with dizziness. He fought the sensation, but he found it impossible to focus his eyes and, as he blinked and clung to the struts which held up the fighting platform, he was aware of a strange sound which suddenly punctured his daze. It was like the sound of a hundred serfs with heavy flails threshing wheat. He had heard that noise often during summers spent overseeing Strongbow’s estates though he could not imagine why the task would suddenly be performed during a battle.

  ‘It’s too early to have brought in the harvest,’ he slurred and collapsed from his knees onto his backside. He attempted to open his eyes again but they continued to roll in his head. ‘One more month at least,’ he babbled as the thwack of wood continued to echo around him though it was now swamped by screaming. Raymond barely had time to register the cause of the new sound for, at that moment, a set of hands slipped under his armpits and he felt himself being dragged away, his heels trailing on the wood chip ground.

  ‘But the serfs,’ he garbled and flapped his left hand towards the sound of the flails.

  ‘Have you lost your senses, you dolt?’ wheezed Ferrand. He grunted with the effort that it took to lug his captain away from the fight between the battlements towards the open gates to Dun Domhnall.

  Fighting the urge to vomit, Raymond forced his eyes open and found that he had regained control over his sight and was staring straight up into Ferrand’s crumbling features. His mind quickly reordered as he stared at the leper’s upside down face, bounded on all sides by the brightest blue sky that he had ever
seen. He remembered talking to Ragnall of Veðrarfjord at the estuary and fighting alongside Bertram d’Alton as Waverider burned. He recalled Dreigiau bucking and Geoffrey of Abergavenny stabbing at the axeman, and all of a sudden he did not feel sick or disorientated any longer. His head flopped forward so that he could look back down the length of the battlements. Raymond half expected that he would find Jarl Sigtrygg standing above him ready to deliver a killing blow to both he and Ferrand, but instead he instantaneously understood that the sound that had so confused him was not that of flails dividing grain from chaff. It had been the sound of bowstrings striking against elm bowstaves.

  From the inner wall of Dun Domhnall Welsh archers were shooting downwards onto Jarl Sigtrygg’s crew and Raymond knew instinctively that no warband could live long under that arrow storm. A strange sensation of sadness almost overtook him as he watched the death of an enemy that, a matter of moments before, had been trying to kill him. The sun had shifted position in the sky and the rays now poured directly down between the two battlements, almost blinding him. He was thankful that he had to turn away from the slaughter.

  ‘Let me go,’ Raymond complained towards Ferrand. ‘I can stand up now.’

  ‘Be quiet. We are almost there.’ Ferrand hissed as he dragged Raymond to his left. Suddenly Raymond’s world went dark. The Norman captain’s feet collided with wood before he was dumped unceremoniously onto the hard earth back in the dazzling sunshine.

  ‘Close the gates,’ Ferrand cried, now closer to Raymond’s ear than before. The captain realised that the leper had crumpled to the floor due to his exertions and had dragged Raymond on top of him. Ferrand’s gnarled hand slid across his chest as the creak of wooden gates sliding shut sounded to Raymond’s front.

  ‘You are safe now,’ an exhausted Ferrand rasped. He held Raymond firm and patted his chest like a mother would do a scared child at night. ‘They cannot get to you. You are safe now.’

  Raymond tried to roll off Ferrand, but the leper’s grip around his chest was immense and it was several seconds before he would allow his captain to break free. When he did Raymond immediately turned to comfort the man who had stood alongside side him when the likelihood of survival was lowest. Ferrand was now prone on the ground with what Raymond took to be a satisfied smile across his broken and gnarled face.

  ‘Ferrand?’ he called and shook the leper. ‘William, are you alright?’ There was no answer from the warrior and Raymond feared that Ferrand had got exactly what he had asked for on the morning that they had first landed in Ireland. He quickly looked around for assistance. Men were running this way and that in disorder and no one was paying any heed to Ferrand’s plight.

  ‘Geoffrey, bring me water quickly,’ he called, but his esquire was nowhere to be seen. He made a mental note to reprimand his apprentice for being absent when he needed him and turned back to Ferrand. He stared at the man’s face, wracked by disease, and wondered if it would be better that the warrior die now. He bowed his head to say a prayer to St Michael. ‘He kept his oath and I pray that God was indeed watching when he recovered his honour. He saved the fort.’

  A cheerful chuckle issued from the man lying beside him.

  ‘We did that together,’ Ferrand rasped. ‘I only wished to save you,’ he closed his eyes, a smile prominent on his ghastly face. ‘And you are safe now.’ His head flopped onto his shoulder and as much as Raymond tried to rouse him, Ferrand would not open his eyes again. Closer inspection allowed him to feel breath coming from his lungs. In the end Raymond’s only option was to drag Ferrand away from the gates and lay him on the ground by the cattle pens above the beach. The animals, scared by the fighting, mooed and gathered together by the wattle fence as far from the battlements as they could get. The beasts were secure, but the twisted wooden rods squeaked and strained as the cattle pressed against the fence. Raymond momentarily wondered if Ferrand would be trampled if he remained beside the enclosure.

  ‘Be safe, my friend,’ he told the leper as he stood straight. The rigging and mast had gone, but Waverider still burned by the seashore and Raymond watched as the flames licked the fire-blackened sheer-strake on the steering board side. It was mesmeric as the slight wind off the sea made the fire roar. Even from a hundred paces away, he could feel the heat on his face and he closed his eyes, allowing the sour smoke to tease his nostrils. Raymond knew that he had responsibilities on the fortifications, but for a few seconds his army’s plight and the pain in his arms and head disappeared as he concentrated on the thump of small waves against the cliffs and the grumble of flames as the fire consumed Waverider.

  His trance was disturbed by the screams of injured men emanating from between the walls of Dun Domhnall. He tried to ignore them by closing his eyes, but they easily penetrated his thoughts and with a sigh Raymond opened his eyelids, returning to real life. He was amazed to see that Waverider had moved, only a matter of ten paces, but she was floating into the bay, revealing the undamaged Ostman vessel behind. The sight of Waverider escaping into the small waters somehow cheered him.

  ‘Go on,’ he urged the burning ship, ‘Get out of here.’

  Fully laden, Waverider only needed a draught of a few feet to float and, with her rigging and contents having burned away in the inferno, she needed even fewer now. Her prow swung northwards as he watched and she came to rest atop the dark rocks hidden just beneath the surface in the bay. He urged her to break free, his attention completely overtaken by the burning ship’s efforts to escape, and he cursed the tide for not rising faster. Despite the roar of flames he could hear Waverider‘s hull scratch along the rocks and then suddenly she was free again, squeezed between the oncoming tide and the underwater features in the bay so that she again travelled northwards.

  Raymond would’ve cheered then, captivated as he was with the ship’s progress, but at that second a new noise broke through the din of battle and forced him to turn away from the sea.

  Alice screamed his name.

  ‘Loose!’ Borard shouted again. Welsh bowstrings slapped sharply against ash heartwood staves and arrows lanced into Jarl Sigtrygg’s crew. The archers barely had the need to aim for they couldn’t miss the enemy crammed into such a small area as that between the fortifications. Instead the fifty men on the wall concentrated on shooting as fast as they could, letting loose a hail of arrows onto their enemy. In a matter of seconds hundreds sliced into the Ostmen.

  ‘Lay it on,’ Borard snarled as the Welsh archers grabbed for more arrows from the bags at their hips. Another flight whistled through the air to thump into the enemy below, striking face, torso and limb. Those had barely struck before another soared and struck home to rattle wooden wall and shield. The screeches coming from the wounded appalled Borard but he again ordered the men to unleash their fury on the enemy. ‘They would do the same to you given half a chance,’ he shouted. ‘So lay it on them, you Welsh bastards!’

  ‘They’re running away!’ one of the archers said before nocking another arrow and leaning over the pointed stakes of the wall to shoot one of the retreating Ostmen between his shoulder blades. He whooped as it hit home. So close were the targets that the Welsh arrows powered through the weak points in the shields. They ricocheted and scored through limbs held aloft. They clanged as they struck helmets and cleaved flesh as they passed through hardened leather armour like it was no thicker than vellum parchment.

  The Ostmen were brave, but they knew that only death awaited them between the walls of Dun Domhnall and soon those closest to the outer gates had turned and fled to find shelter from the arrow storm on the far side of the fortifications. Quickly, more survivors began to make off in that direction, their colourful circular shields held across their backs to defend them from more Welsh arrows.

  ‘Cease,’ Borard shouted when he judged the fight to be over. Even with his order it still took several seconds to get all the Welshmen to stop shooting. ‘Save your arrows. They are finished,’ he called and cursed the archers’ native cruelty as they continued
to kill the retreating men. It was only when their senior men translated his order that the Welshmen ceased their salvo.

  Below Borard there was little movement. It was difficult to tell where one body ended and the next began. Arrows sprouted indiscriminately from flesh and from earth. It was like a terrible harvest. In the few minutes since they had begun their aerial onslaught the seventy archers had all but exhausted their supply of arrows and over two thousand peppered the small area below. Even the archers were quieted by the carnage which they had wrought. Groans and wailing resonated from between the walls.

  ‘Raymond?’ Borard called into the carnage and desperately searched the crush for any sign of his captain. It seemed like only moments before that Raymond’s esquire had opened the outer gates allowing the Ostmen to pierce Dun Domhnall’s defences. Borard had been certain that the outer wall was about to be captured and so he had leapt from the inner allure where he had been stationed and sprinted to the western extremity of the headland. There he had gathered the archers, who had been sent to watch over the western beach by Sir Hervey, and had brought them back to the wall. He thanked God that he had arrived back in time to stop the Ostman crew, but it had been a close run thing. Borard raised his eyes from the slaughter to look over the wall at the horde which approached the fort; a wave of hard leather and iron about to crash into the broken walls of Dun Domhnall.

  ‘Raymond!’

  Borard did not want to consider what would happen if command of the warband fell to Sir Hervey de Montmorency. His last sight of Strongbow’s uncle had been of him galloping away from the attack of the Ostman crew, up the outer wall towards the inner gate. Might he be dead too? And to who would the captaincy fall then, he wondered. Walter de Bloet, he supposed, given that he was Strongbow’s kinsman.