The problem was that with forty-two men Selby did not have enough strength to man all the walls and towers. Forty-two, because Peter de Lisle had insisted on joining the defenders. ‘I have a bow, sir, and I’m a good shot.’
‘I know you are,’ said Merrivale. ‘But you are also training to be a herald.’
‘Yes, sir. With your permission, I should like to take leave of my post for a short time.’
Why do I surround myself with stubborn people? Merrivale wondered. Tiphaine was just the same. Despite instructions to rest, she had struggled up onto the wall-walk to watch the approaching army. She saw Brus’s red saltire among the coats of arms, but did not flinch. ‘Why haven’t you gone?’ she asked. ‘Your herald’s tabard is your passport, you say it all the time.’
‘And usually I am right,’ Merrivale said. ‘But Brus wants to kill both of us. When we go, we will go under a proper flag of truce, with an escort I trust.’
Most of the Scottish army was over the river by now, with only a few companies left on the north bank in case the garrison should try to break out that way. Slowly, jostling for position, the men-at-arms and spearmen and archers closed in on the castle, advancing with deliberate calm under bright banners flapping in the sunlight.
A trumpet sounded. The advancing ranks shuffled to a halt. From the direction of the king’s standard came a single man on foot, unarmed, with a wooden staff in his hand and wearing a brilliant glittering tabard with the red lion of Scotland on a field of gold. ‘My old friend Lyon Herald,’ Merrivale said. ‘With your permission, Sir Walter, I shall go to meet him.’
He turned to Selby. ‘You are forty men against twelve thousand. No one would think it dishonourable if you surrendered.’
Selby rubbed his long chin. ‘You’re right, of course. I want a safe-conduct for myself and my men to Carlisle. And I want my son back.’
Merrivale waited while the drawbridge was lowered, and then stepped out through the postern and walked across the bridge towards his opposite number, waiting on the other side.
Lyon Herald’s eyes opened in surprise. ‘Sim! What the devil are you doing here?’
‘Running an errand,’ Merrivale said pleasantly. ‘How are you, Archie? How is the campaign going so far?’
‘A lot of floundering around in the rain up until now.’ The other man glanced up at the sky. ‘We might see some action now the weather’s improved.’
‘What have you come to tell me?’
Lyon Herald cleared his throat. He seemed uncomfortable, Merrivale thought. ‘His Grace demands that Liddel Strength be surrendered to him immediately, with all its weapons and goods. The surrender must be unconditional.’
Merrivale shook his head. ‘Sir Walter Selby demands that his men be allowed to withdraw to Carlisle, with all their weapons and accoutrements. He also asks that his son, who was taken prisoner earlier this morning, be returned to him.’
‘Sorry, Sim. The king won’t have it, and neither will the Seigneur de Brus. I can offer a safe-conduct for you and your attendants, but that is all.’
In the distance behind Lyon Herald a wagon had drawn up and two men were unloading a long bundle wrapped in canvas. ‘That is against the rules of war,’ Merrivale said. ‘If a garrison surrenders before the fighting starts, they must be allowed to withdraw safely. Come on, Archie, you know that.’
‘Aye,’ said Graham unhappily. ‘But that’s what the king is saying, Sim, and that’s what Brus is saying. They’re accusing Selby of being a traitor. They want him dead.’
‘And they want a fight,’ Merrivale said. ‘They want to blood the army, give them a victory to lift spirits. If I take up your safe-conduct, the Demoiselle de Tesson comes with me.’
Graham looked even more unhappy. ‘Sorry, Sim. There’s another condition to the safe conduct. You must surrender the demoiselle to us.’
The two men carrying the bundle were drawing closer. Both had white kerchiefs, flags of truce, wrapped around their arms. ‘Surrender her? Really? Do the laws of war in Scotland now approve of murdering young women out of hand?’
Graham said nothing, but he looked deeply unhappy. ‘There are no circumstances under which I am prepared to hand her over,’ Merrivale said. ‘I will not send this woman to her death.’
Lyon Herald spread his hands. ‘That’s it. It’s the safe-conduct for you alone, or nothing. Sorry, Sim.’
‘On your heads be it,’ said Merrivale. ‘The walls are strong, and the garrison is large and well-armed. Taking this place will not be easy. If your king changes his mind and wants to offer new terms, I will be waiting.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ said Graham.
‘What about Sir Walter’s son? Do you have any news of him?’
Lyon Herald was not listening. The other two men had halted at the edge of the fosse. Unwrapping the canvas, they lifted something heavy and threw it into the mud at the bottom of the ditch. It was a man’s corpse, stripped of the armour he had once worn, his shirt stained deep red where the sword blades had bitten into his flesh over and over again. He had been slashed across the head too, and his face was caked with dried blood, but it was still possible to recognise Will Selby, the captain’s son.
The silence seemed to go on forever. ‘I knew nothing of this,’ Graham said.
Merrivale turned on him. ‘Then you should have known, Archie,’ he said violently. ‘One of the duties of a herald is to intercede for unarmed prisoners, to make sure they are treated well. You failed. You allowed that boy to be murdered, when he had a broken leg and was in no condition to harm anyone. Brus uses you like a tool, just like he uses the king.’
He pointed to the red lion rampant. ‘You are a disgrace to that tabard and the office you hold. I had thought better of you, Archie. I really had.’
Silently, Graham bowed and turned away. The two men who had carried the corpse followed him. Merrivale turned to the horrified Englishmen looking down from the ramparts. ‘Fetch the body in,’ he said. ‘We can at least lay him to rest.’
Liddel Strength, 6th of October, 1346
Evening
They laid out the body of Will Selby in the little chapel before the altar. There was no priest to say prayers for him but Selby knelt by the body, closing his eyes and gripping his son’s hand silently for a moment. Then he rose, and when he opened his eyes they were bright and hard.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘We have work to do.’
Despite their overwhelming numbers the Scots did not attack immediately; perhaps, Merrivale thought, Lyon Herald had believed him about the garrison. As the day wore on the enemy made camp and parties of men began scouring the countryside; not burning this time but wrecking, tearing down houses and barns, byres and walls and dragging loads of timber and stone back to their lines.
Inside the castle Selby’s men were equally busy. The armoury had plenty of breastplates and helmets, far more than the garrison needed. It was Mauro who showed them how to make mannekins of straw and dress them in armour, posting them in embrasures around the ramparts. Peter cut the captain’s bedsheets into the shapes of banners, painted them with the arms of several prominent Cumberland families and paraded them gleefully around the walls. Tiphaine helped him, limping a little. ‘I have to do something,’ she said.
The rest of the garrison polished their weapons, checked the fletchings of their arrows and honed their sword blades to razor sharpness on the grindstone. They brought out jars of oil and struck rags in them for wicks, and carried more stones up onto the ramparts and piled them in heaps. Then they waited.
As the sun sank over the Solway Firth, Selby went into the chapel and sat for a few minutes, alone with the body of his son. Then he called his men together in the inner bailey. The herald and Tiphaine stood to one side, watching.
‘There is one thing we can be certain of,’ Selby said. ‘We are going to die here.’
The grief for his son was plain in his face, but he stood straight and tall, hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘The enem
y have made it clear, through the herald, that they intend to show us no mercy. These are the last days, possibly the last hours, of our lives. Understand that, and know what it means. We have no priest to shrive us but we can at least pray, and hope God listens.’
The men watched him in silence. ‘But we will not die easily,’ Selby said. ‘The Scots cannot advance on Carlisle until they have taken this castle, and they cannot advance further until Carlisle falls or surrenders. Every hour of resistance gives Archbishop de la Zouche more time to gather his army and march north. Every hour we fight increases the chance of victory. So, let us sell our lives dearly.
‘One day they will sing songs about the defence of Liddel Strength, and the forty-two heroes who defended it to the end. Let’s make those songs damned good ones.’
‘We will, my lord,’ an archer said quietly. ‘For you, and for your son.’
After a moment of silence, Selby nodded. ‘Good. Now, light the kitchen fires and get some food. It’s going to be a long night.’
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 6th of October, 1346
Evening
Lady Mary had been afflicted with a touch of rheum for the last couple of days, which she thought was probably quite useful. No one ever suspected the motives of a woman with a pink nose.
After dinner she put on a cloak, summoned her maidservant and went out. The cool evening air made her eyes water and her nose stream, and she wondered briefly if this was a good idea. After all, the herald had said she should not go out of her way, whatever that meant. But he had also asked her to keep watch on the merchants, without actually saying what he wanted her to do. Typically vague male instructions, she thought.
Blyth had told her the names of all the members of the Guild Merchant, and assured her once again that they were innocent. That could be true, she thought, or else they are all bound up in the plot together; either way, I will get nothing out of them. The only other name she had was that of Kristoffer Tielt, the merchant from Bruges.
‘I don’t think Tielt is involved,’ the herald had said before he rode away. ‘But that doesn’t mean none of the foreign merchants are.’ She had thought of asking Blyth for more details about the foreign merchants, but wondered how reliable his information would be if it came through the Guild Merchant. Instead, she decided to go and see Tielt herself and ask him.
The merchant received her in his solar, a bright painted room with a coal fire burning on the brick hearth. ‘It is an honour to welcome you to my home,’ he said, bowing. ‘How may I serve you, my lady?’
‘I would like to buy a pot of saffron, please,’ Lady Mary said brightly.
‘You could have sent your servant to do that,’ Tielt said.
The shutters had come down behind his eyes. So much for my theory about women with pink noses, Lady Mary thought. ‘I also wanted to talk to you. The herald, Simon Merrivale, came to see you yesterday. He said he had a very interesting conversation with you.’
‘I told him everything I know.’
She gazed at him, feeling her sinuses filling up. This was not going at all well, she thought.
‘I understand your feelings, Heer Tielt. It cannot be easy for you as a foreign merchant – ah-choo!’ She paused, taking a square of linen from her reticule and blowing her nose. ‘I do beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘It cannot be easy for you. Distrusted by the populace, disliked by your rival merchants from the town, aware that any moment a stroke of the royal pen could expel you from the kingdom. I think it is quite wrong that you should have so few rights or liberties.’
Tielt crossed his long arms over his chest. ‘What is your point, my lady?’
‘My point is that, given the situation, you are unlikely to say everything you know to a royal official,’ she said. ‘To a herald, for example.’
‘I can assure you I gave him my full cooperation,’ Tielt said.
‘I’m sure you answered every question he asked you, yes. You would have been unwise not to. But knowledge is power, Heer Tielt. Knowing things other people don’t know gives you a shield, a defence. And that is why I am here,’ she said, fighting back another sneeze. ‘I have come to find out what you are holding back.’
Tielt looked at her. ‘If I didn’t tell the herald everything I know, what makes you think I will tell you? You are his friend.’
‘I’m not, really,’ she said. ‘I met him by chance last month, and saw him again when he came to Newcastle. I don’t know him at all well.’
‘You don’t know him well, yet you reside under the same roof as him, in the house of William Blyth.’
‘Yes.’ She caught something in the tone of his voice, and her fuddled brain cleared for a moment. ‘It’s not the herald, is it? It’s Master Blyth. You don’t trust him, and you think he might have sent me to spy on you.’
Tielt pursed his lips. ‘Did he?’
‘May I tell you a secret, Heer Tielt? I don’t like people who keep birds indoors, as pets. They should be allowed to fly free. Don’t you think?’
‘Blyth is a wealthy man. He can do what he wants.’
‘Yes, bankers usually do… As a matter of curiosity, do you know how he made his money? Was he always a moneylender, or did he start off as a general merchant, like so many do?’
‘I regret to say I don’t know,’ Tielt said. ‘Beyond Master Blyth himself, I doubt if anyone does. All I know is that he rose very far, very quickly. It is strange, is it not, how fast these men rise? De la Pole, Pulteney, Blyth, Gilbert de Tracey; one moment they are down in the mud with the rest of us, the next they are among the mighty, bankers to the king, royal councillors, knights. Fortune’s wheel is kind to them, I think.’
‘It hasn’t been kind to Tracey,’ Lady Mary said. ‘Are you jealous of Blyth? Do you envy him his fortune?’
‘If I am honest, yes,’ Tielt said after a moment. ‘But you were right, my lady. I don’t trust him. You see, his antecedents are not so different from my own. And I don’t know what happened to make him into the man he is now.’
‘Tell me,’ Lady Mary said gently.
‘Blyth is twenty years younger than me. He does not know it, I think, but we were born in the same street in Bruges. His mother was a woman of the city, and his father was an English trader who had settled there. I was already living here in Newcastle, my business well established, when Blyth senior and his son returned from Bruges and started a new venture here. The father died not long after, and his son took over his business.’
‘Did he inherit a fortune?’
‘No, not at all. The business was no larger than my own. But somehow, in the space of a few fortunate years, Blyth secured royal patronage and became the most powerful and wealthy banker in the north of England.’
‘You think there was corruption involved,’ Lady Mary said.
‘It is not for me to say.’
‘Well, it would hardly be surprising. I doubt very much if any of the men you mentioned climbed to the top of the greasy pole without doing some underhanded things along the way. It’s pretty much the same in every walk of life. The greedy prosper, while the honest watch their children starve.’
‘Of course,’ said Tielt. ‘But this gets us no closer to understanding who is plotting against the town.’
She asked the question directly. ‘Could it be any of the foreign merchants?’
‘They have very little to gain and everything to lose, including their lives. If even a whiff of treason reaches the streets, the mob will set upon them. I believe this plot exists, my lady, but you will find it among the merchants of the town, not the outlanders.’
‘I see,’ said Lady Mary. ‘The Guild Merchant says it is the foreigners, and the foreigners say it is the Guild Merchant.’
‘Yes,’ said Tielt. ‘And someone, somewhere, is lying.’
* * *
‘Where have you been, my lady?’ Blyth asked when she returned. ‘It is not safe for a woman to be out at this hour, not with soldiers patrolling the streets.’
‘Oh, I
was safe enough,’ Lady Mary said. ‘I went to see Tielt, the spice merchant.’
‘May I be permitted to ask why?’
‘I wanted to buy a pot of saffron, as a gift for my mother,’ she said. She held up the pot. ‘He gave me a cure for my rheum, too.’
Blyth looked disappointed. ‘If there is anything you need, my lady, I would be only too happy to procure it for you. Just say the word.’
‘Thank you, but I always prefer to see spices for myself when I buy them. They are so often adulterated, don’t you think?’
‘Can your mother not get saffron in Kent?’
‘Not at these prices. No wonder the local merchants hate him, if he is undercutting them like this. I think you must be paying your shipmasters too much.’
Blyth smiled. ‘Perhaps we are,’ he said. ‘I shall have to look into it. Will you join me in a glass of wine, my lady?’
Lady Mary sneezed again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But I am going to take my cure and withdraw to my bed. Good night, Master Blyth.’
23
Liddel Strength, 7th of October, 1346
Midday
‘Here they come, my lord!’ called an archer from the inner gatehouse.
‘About time,’ Selby said sharply. ‘What have they been waiting for, a fucking invitation?’ He ran up the stair to the roof of the tower, plate armour clanking. Merrivale followed him. On the roof platform the catapult stood, mounted on a turntable with a pile of stone shot beside it. The day was hazy with smoke; away in the distance towards the sea they could see the orange flicker of farms and hamlets burning. The Scottish army lay camped in a great circle around them, bisected by the river. Nearer at hand, a cluster of armoured men-at-arms was riding towards the gates, the red and gold banner of the Marischal flying overhead.
A Clash of Lions Page 24