Stronghold (3 page)

Navarre galloped up to them, his horse chopping turf as it slid to a halt.

"The girl rides with the vanguard," he said.

"Why?" Ranulf asked.

"Isn't it obvious? To lessen the chance of attack."

"I thought the idea was to draw an attack... if there's to be one."

"Earl Corotocus wishes to lose as few men as possible, FitzOsbern. But he needs to know what we're facing. With the girl as a human shield, we'll likely draw a non-fatal response."

Ranulf glanced unhappily at his father, who shrugged.

"Ranulf FitzOsbern," Navarre said in a sneering tone. "I wouldn't like to think you were about to disobey Earl Corotocus."

Ranulf handed over the reins. Navarre rode away, leading Gwendolyn's pony behind him at a fast trot. The girl sat stiffly, but now looked frightened. She glanced back at Ranulf and his father as if suddenly thinking them a better option than whatever lay ahead.

"Earl bloody Corotocus," Ranulf said. "Corotocus? Where did he get that name? Doesn't it sound like a demon to you?"

"It sounds more Gaelic," Ulbert replied.

"The Gael people would be insulted... those that haven't been slaughtered." Ranulf's voice tightened with disgust. "I've never seen such savagery as in the last few days."

"He treats his English subjects the same way."

"His English subjects can appeal to the king."

"And would the king listen? You know the law of the March. Men like Corotocus thrive here because the king needs brutes to control the border."

"That doesn't excuse him.

"Agreed. By any standards, his atrocities are perhaps... over elaborate."

"Atrocities to which we're a part, father."

"We're excused, Ranulf. We're here through fealty."

"Fealty?" Ranulf shook his head. "We agreed to pay our debts by fighting for him."

"Which we have done, many times."

"Yes, and which I'll gladly do again. Show me armed opposition and I'll fight it now. But I'm tired of terrorising the weak and helpless."

"You should watch what you're saying, boy," another knight said as he walked by, leading his horse. He was Walter Margas, one of Corotocus's tenants. By all accounts he'd done well in the earl's service, but he was now an old, embittered fellow with watery eyes and a grizzled grey beard. His wore a distinctive surcoat of blue and white chevrons but, with his potbelly and bandy legs, he didn't cut a striking figure. "Rogue knights like you are ten-a-penny. The earl could dispense with you tomorrow, and he wouldn't lose a wink of sleep."

"And as for cowards like him," Ranulf said when he'd gone, "do we really want to fight alongside them?"

Ulbert chuckled. "Would you expect to find Margas alongside you if there was real fighting to be done?"

"Father, this isn't a joke."

"Then you must make it one!" Ulbert snapped, turning impatient.

Despite his mild manner, Ulbert was in his mid-fifties and a battle-scarred veteran. He'd served more lords than he could remember, several of whose reasons for waging war were less than worthy and whose methods of prosecuting it were, in truth, appalling. But he'd learned through long experience that taking a moral view was a waste of energy and emotion - all it would do in the end was prevent you sleeping at night, and in wartime you needed your sleep. Thus far on this expedition he'd tolerated Ranulf's distaste for the earl's techniques, but now he feared that it might bring trouble for them.

"We're in Earl Corotocus's service for a term of seven more years - on oath," he reminded his son. "With luck we'll spend the remainder of those years in this castle, doing nothing more than waiting and watching from our guard-posts."

"Seven years... holed up in there!"

"Some men would be glad. The whole army of Hell couldn't get at us in there." For some reason, Ulbert shuddered at that thought.

Below them, meanwhile, the small vanguard of ten men and one woman proceeded down the grassy slope to the bridge, the earl's gonfalon fluttering above them. Still, the figures on the battlements were motionless. The rest of the earl's host lapsed into silence as they watched. Nervously, the vanguard crossed the bridge, rode around the castle's southwest tower, which was cut with numerous, slanted vents so that missiles could be poured onto the bridge from close range, and advanced along the riverside berm. No attempt was made to interfere with them, and gradually the other troops began to relax.

"So far so good," Ranulf said.

Ulbert didn't reply.

The vanguard reached the far end and, when it turned at the castle's southeast corner, vanished altogether. Long minutes followed, which became half an hour, and then an hour - before a rider returned to view, galloping pell-mell across the bridge and up the hillside.

"It's open, my lord!" he cried. "The main entrance is open! Grogen Castle is ours!"

"And the garrison?" Corotocus shouted back.

"As you said, sir... straw men. Effigies."

"So now it was Earl Corotocus who said that," Ranulf observed.

"Of course," Ulbert replied.

The earl marshalled his host, and, with a beneficent air, led it downhill.

His household retainers rode directly behind him. After these came the royal contingents: detachments on loan from King Edward's own Familiaris Regis - the men-at-arms under Craon Culai, the crossbows under Bryon Musard, and the longbows under Davy Gou. After these marched a Welsh sub-chief called Morgaynt Carew - he and his small group of discontented warriors didn't like the English, but had worse grievances against Madog ap Llywelyn, the architect of the uprising. The tenant knights from the earl's estates followed and then came the men on oath, the likes of Ulbert and Ranulf. At the very rear came Garbofasse and his mercenaries, a motley band of cutthroats and outcasts. They wore few colours, but were heavily mailed and carried a vast assortment of weapons, everything from falchions to mauls and morningstars, from halberds to broadswords and scimitars. Garbofasse himself was a brutish giant, with long black hair and famously disgusting breath. In the twenty villages Corotocus had sacked, it was these men who'd partaken most - burning cottages, raping women, revelling in the bloodshed as if bred to it from birth.

"I'd be happier without these scoundrels at my back," Ranulf grumbled as he steered his horse downhill.

"Better they're on our side than against us," his father replied.

The berm path was an unnerving experience. All the way along it, they were acutely aware of the projecting walk fifty feet overhead, and its many 'murder holes' through which all types of objects could be dropped upon them. The curtain-wall rose like a sheer cliff to their left, its skirted base narrowing the path until only two horses could move along it abreast. With a shallow slope into the river on the right, this wasn't unduly perilous, but when they turned the southeast corner and found themselves alongside the moat, it was a different matter. The column hugged the curtain-wall as it processed. Those on the outside, man or beast, only needed to stumble or slip once and they'd plunge thirty feet onto jumbled rocks.

When they finally reached the castle's main entrance, it was an immense gateway recessed to one side at the end of a deep entry passage. Proceeding down towards it, one could still be attacked from overhead via the Gatehouse battlements or via the curtain-wall, which bounded it on the left. However, the gate itself, a massive oaken structure, faced with iron, was open, and the portcullis behind it had been raised. They rode through, their hooves clattering in the long, vaulted tunnel, and then out and along a timber causeway, which passed twenty feet above the bailey, a yard hemming in the Inner Fort. At the south end of the causeway stood the Constable's Tower. This was a miniature castle in its own right. In shape if not size, it reminded Ranulf of the great Tower erected on the north bank of the Thames, but again its gate was open and its portcullis raised. They rode through, passing along another vaulted tunnel and out into the precincts of the Inner Fort, descending a ramp into the central courtyard where, among many thatch and wattle out-buildings, an entire stable block was located.

With their squires and grooms scampering ahead to provide berths for their animals, the knights and men-at-arms shouted and jostled as they dismounted, the sounds of which echoed to the high ramparts. Only slowly and with much good-natured disorder, did they fall into their separate companies.

Last into the courtyard, moving at a leisurely pace as always, rode Doctor Zacharius. With him came the covered wagon filled with salves and herbs and medicines, driven by his assistant, Henri.

Zacharius, a prized surgeon, was a youngish, clean-shaven man, with long dark hair, green eyes and a wolfish countenance. Even now in the midst of campaign, dressing well was important to him. He wore a blue serge gamache, a brown felt hood with scalloped shoulder-pieces, bright yellow hose and blue, long-toed boots. By contrast, Henri was a pallid, tremulous youth wrapped in a dark, woollen cloak spattered with roadside mud. The general feeling, though no-one knew this for sure, was that Henri was one of the doctor's numerous illegitimate offspring, though in this particular case, given that he was being taught the surgeon's skill assiduously and thus preparing for a career of his own, he was probably the outcome of a liaison with a high-born lady.

"Place is completely empty - no serving wenches, not even a scullery maid," Navarre said, approaching the doctor on foot. He chuckled. "Could be a barren spell for you, Zacharius."

Zacharius smiled as he dismounted. "But at least it will end when I leave this place. When will yours end, Navarre?"

Navarre's cockeyed smile faded. "My lord says you have the pick of these buildings for your personal quarters and your infirmary. If anyone disputes your decision, you have his authority."

Zacharius nodded as if he'd expect nothing less.

Navarre scowled as he turned, leading his horse by its bridle.

"Reached the limits of your power, Navarre?" Ranulf wondered, having just emerged from the stable and overheard. "Again?"

"No man is fireproof, FitzOsbern," Navarre retorted. "Anything can happen to any one of us at any time. You'd do well to remember that."

He led his horse away, Ranulf gazing after him, thinking that their incarceration in this place was likely to be even more onerous than he'd first thought.

CHAPTER THREE

Earl Corotocus opted to put his headquarters in the Constable's Tower, for this controlled both the main entrance and access to the Inner Fort, and therefore the entire stronghold. Above its entry tunnel, there were various rooms. All were functional - made from cold, bare stone and bereft of wall hangings or furniture, though they had hearths where fires could be kindled, and bales of straw and piles of fleeces to provide bedding. Word soon came that the storehouses in the central courtyard were filled with grain and barrels of fruit and salted pork. There were also kegs of wine and cider, and a deep well in the kitchen, from which a pail of fresh water had already been drawn.

One by one, the earl's lieutenants were allocated their positions. Garbofasse and his mercenaries were to take the Gatehouse, and the earl's household knights the Constable's Tower. The royal contingents would be spread through the castle, the crossbows in the southwest tower, the men-at-arms along the curtain-wall, the longbows to any vantage point of their choice. Carew and his Welsh malcontents, deemed less trustworthy, were assigned to the Barbican, a low but heavily fortified tower just west of the Gatehouse, where they could man the castle's main piece of artillery, a huge stone-throwing trebuchet, but where, more importantly, the earl could watch them. Lastly, the earl's tenant knights would reinforce the defenders on the curtain-wall.

"That leaves us, my lord," Ulbert said, speaking not just for himself and his son, but for three other indebted knights - Tomas d'Altard, Ramon la Roux and Gurt Louvain.

"Take the curtain-wall on the south side, overlooking the river," Corotocus told them dismissively. He was seated at a long table in the Constable's Tower's main chamber. A map of the castle and its surrounding environs had been found in a chest, and lay unscrolled in front of him. "Bed in the barrack house in the Inner Fort. Rotate your sleeping arrangements with the others. I never want less than half the garrison on watch."

Ulbert bowed and retreated.

"And the girl, my lord?" Ranulf asked. "Do we house her in the barracks too? I'm sure there'll be a side-hall or ante-chamber where she can have some privacy."

"She can have her privacy in the Keep."

"The Keep?" Ranulf said.

As the final refuge, the Keep, a gargantuan square edifice, was perhaps the grimmest part of the castle. It stood in the northeast corner of the Inner Fort, taking up almost a quarter of the central courtyard. It had its own moat, which could only be crossed at ground level by a drawbridge, or ninety feet in the air by two gantry drawbridges connecting to it from the North Hall and the State Rooms. It had few windows; its precipitous walls, which were much thicker than any others in the castle, rose unbroken for an incredible one hundred and fifty feet. It was unimaginable that anyone should try to storm such a structure. But it was equally unimaginable that anyone, save the lowest felon or most dangerous rebel, should be imprisoned inside it. There'd be little light in there, even less clean air, and probably no sanitation. The girl would be completely alone, for none of the men would be stationed there unless the castle's outer defences fell.

A few seconds passed, before Earl Corotocus glanced up from his map. "Ranulf, is that disapproval I hear?"

"How could I disapprove, my lord, of such a fair and Christian-minded judgement?"

All around the chamber, where a number of the earl's men were still loitering, breaths were sucked through gritted teeth. Father Benan, who had been kneeling in prayer before a corner table with a crucifix etched on the wall above it, looked around and gaped. Ulbert stepped forward, thrusting Ranulf out of the way.

"Apologies my lord. My son is a fool who often speaks out of turn."