The Iron Castle (Outlaw Chronicles) (22 page)

Each day every fighting man was issued a small loaf of bread, a quarter pound of cheese, a quarter pound of butter, a cup of dried peas or beans and a pint of wine. Once a week they were given a pound of salted meat or fish and, of course, they could draw as much water as they liked from the well, which had been sunk an astonishing four hundred feet through the limestone rock, right down below the Seine. Each family of townsfolk, regardless of their number, received the same as one fighting man, but without the ration of meat or fish and with an extra loaf of bread. It was not a lavish diet, to be sure; we would be in no danger of growing too fat, but it should be adequate to keep us alive, active and in reasonable health.

I received a shock when I first reported to the quartermaster in his little shack in the southern part of the middle bailey’s courtyard – for it was none other than Benedict Malet. I had not known that Hubert de Burgh’s ill-favoured nephew was in Château Gaillard at all, let alone that he had been entrusted with such a position. For during a siege the role of quartermaster was crucial: he would control the distribution of the food supplies that would determine how long the castle could hold out.

It was an unpleasant shock to come face to face with the big, pimply fellow, particularly as I was there cap in hand to beg rations for the outer bailey.

He was sitting at a small square table inside the three-walled hut outside the underground storeroom, with a brimming cup of wine by his wrist. Half a dozen burly men-at-arms lounged beside the entrance to the store-cave, sneering at the crowds who thronged past – for the middle bailey, the heart of the castle, was even more crowded than the outer bailey – and Benedict looked up at me as I approached with a faint smile on his face. ‘Ah yes, Sir Alan Dale,’ he said, ‘the common hireling who thinks he’s a knight. And what can I do for you today?’

I swallowed my irritation. I would have to deal closely with this irksome fellow every day for the foreseeable future. I could not afford to let my temper get the better of me.

‘Good morning, Sir Benedict,’ I said, smiling amiably, if a little stiffly. ‘I trust you are well. I have come today for the allocated rations for the outer bailey.

‘Have you now?’ he said, looking down at a sheaf of parchments on the table. ‘What are you asking for exactly?’

‘I have a hundred and twenty-one men-at-arms and forty-three households from Petit Andely in my ward, which means I need two hundred and six loaves of bread—’

‘I have one hundred and seventeen men-at-arms here. What sort of game are you playing? Are you trying to hoodwink me?’

‘No, four new men volunteered as men-at-arms—’

‘If they are not on the list they do not receive rations. I’m surprised at you, Dale. I have had a number of grasping fellows trying it on already this day and it saddens me that you should think me such a fool as to fall for your exaggerated claims. I will not tolerate this sort of greediness.’

I knew he was being deliberately unhelpful. I gritted my teeth. ‘I have a hundred and twenty-one brave men-at-arms serving under me—’

Benedict was rapping repeatedly on the table in front of him with the handle of his dagger. ‘One hundred and seventeen men it says here on this list. No more, no less.’

‘Who makes up the list?’ I grated. I had a growing urge to snatch the dagger and jam it hilt-deep into his fat belly.

‘The official list is made up by the bailiff of the castle, Lord de Lacy’s right-hand man. Sir Joscelyn Giffard himself. And Sir Joscelyn has entrusted me with the important task of issuing the rations according to his official tally of fighting men.’

‘Oh, Bennie, I’m sure Daddy wouldn’t mind if you made an exception,’ said a low, deliciously smoky voice behind me. ‘Just this once. After all, we’re only speaking of four extra men.’

I was then granted the stomach-churning spectacle of Benedict’s expression changing from that of stern counting-house clerk to lovesick fool. His tongue slid out to lick his wide lips, his nostrils flared like a stallion scenting a mare in season, he flicked a lank strand of hair off his spotted forehead. His voice dropped and he said rather huskily, ‘My lady, what an unexpected pleasure!’

I don’t think I have ever wanted to stab someone more.

The lady wisely ignored him. ‘Sir Alan, what a wonderful surprise to see you again.’ I turned to see a vision of loveliness beside my shoulder.

‘Lady Matilda,’ I said stiffly.

‘Tilda, please,’ she said, putting a small, cool hand on my sleeve and, as usual, roasting the bare flesh beneath the cloth. ‘After all, we are old friends.’

She smiled. I lost all the breath in my body.

‘Come now, Bennie, could you not unbend a little and grant Sir Alan his request? As a favour to me. I’m sure we can sort it all out with Daddy later.’

‘Very well,’ grumbled the clerkly oaf. ‘Tell me again – what number of men are you claiming for, Dale?’

I walked from the store-cave with Tilda’s hand still on my arm and Benedict’s solemn promise ringing in my ears to have the stores delivered to the outer bailey within the hour. As we strolled around the corrugated walls of the inner keep, Tilda prattled on about ‘Bennie’ and what a fine fellow he was, but I only half-listened, merely gazing at her perfect face and the line of her white neck.

‘…such a help, even if he is rather odd-looking. Daddy says he doesn’t know what he would do without him. Certainly Bennie is always most obliging…’

‘I thought you were going to join a nunnery,’ I said, cutting through her prattle a little more abruptly than was polite.

‘Oh yes, I am still destined for a life of service to God, everyone absolutely insists on it. But personally I feel more inspired by that famous prayer by Saint Augustine. Do you know it? “O God, make me chaste and celibate – but not yet!”’

She looked at me out of the side of her eye and I felt a stir in my loins at the thought of her being neither chaste nor celibate. I felt giddy: I did not know if I were more astounded by her outrageous comment or by the fact that a girl of nineteen could already quote the works of Saint Augustine by heart.

‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘I heard you were all set to join the sisters of Caen Abbey. Did you change your mind?’

‘They expelled me before I even had a chance to take my vows. And all over a tiny little party. Can you imagine? At first I was such a good girl, so good – praying for the souls of the abbey’s long-dead benefactors day after dull day, rarely indulging in red meat or decent wine, hardly ever skipping Mass. And then, after some months of this dreary existence, I decided I needed a little treat to raise my spirits. It was April and the anniversary of the day of my birth, and I crept out of the cloisters with two good friends of mine, novices like me, and we went to a tavern in Caen for a secret feast at midnight. It was so exciting!’

I was shocked. I knew she was forward, I knew she did not abide by the normal rules governing a lady’s modest behaviour. I had seen that by her over-familiar behaviour towards me. But for a young girl, a novice nun at that, to go off to a low tavern unaccompanied – it was breathtaking. I gazed at her in admiration.

‘Oh, Sir Alan, how we ate and drank and laughed; we made absolute pigs of ourselves – it was all perfectly innocent, just us three having a little fun, but then some musicians joined us – not grand
trouvères
such as yourself, Sir Alan, but a couple of jongleurs, handsome local boys who made up funny rhymes and sang naughty songs about love-making. We had a simply wonderful time and were back in the dormitory before Matins with no one the wiser – but do you know what? One of my friends on this jolly escapade, a silly goose called Emmeline, she took a fancy to one of the jongleurs, and she started writing him little notes and got back the most adorable love poems from him, really quite saucy. Soon she was arranging to meet him behind the chapel after Compline, that sort of thing. Well, never mind, a little harmless flirtation, you might say. But the stupid chit came to believe she had fallen in love with this penniless jongleur. She went to the Mother Superior a few weeks later and asked to leave the abbey. But what is worse, she confessed all. She told the Mother Superior about her lover and how she met him at my anniversary feast. Quick as lightning, all three of us novices were summoned, briskly interrogated and promptly expelled the very next day. Just for having a little party. It was so silly and unnecessary.’

‘So have you given up the dream of a monastic life?’ I tried to keep all signs of my soaring hope out of my voice.

Tilda sighed. ‘My father has his heart set on it, and I want him to be happy, so I expect I will have to take the veil before too long. Your lord, the rather dashing Earl of Locksley, has been talking to Daddy about finding a place for me in a Cistercian priory in England. Somewhere in Yorkshire – Kirklees, I think the place is called. Do you know of it?’

I muttered that I had heard of it, and privately vowed that I would speak to Robin and make sure this little plan did not come to fruition. I had lost Tilda once to Holy Mother Church and I would not lose her again, not if I could help it.

We promenaded around the middle bailey and, like a foolish braggart, I tried to impress Tilda with tales of my adventures in the Holy Land and elsewhere. She listened attentively, but I was distracted, for it became clear to me that I was not the only man in Château Gaillard entranced by Tilda. A least a dozen of the men-at-arms grinned broadly at her as we walked past, calling out friendly greetings, winking and snatching off their headgear; and three of the garrison knights bowed low as we passed, one of them – a Gascon, I believe – even going so far as to kiss the tips of his fingers. Tilda responded beautifully in a friendly, sober, courteous manner.

For my part, I glared at them and wished them all to Hell.

After the initial botched and bloody attack at the beginning of autumn, there was little fighting for almost a month – a few exchanges of arrows from the battlements when the French approached too near, and a party of knights who rode up to the walls and challenged our best men to single combat. But de Lacy said he would hang any man who took up their offer and the French rode away disappointed, calling us cowards.

However, King Philip was far from idle during this time. Indeed, he and his men stirred themselves to great feats in the art of warfare – which, in truth, meant great feats of digging.

A small hill to the east and slightly to the south of Château Gaillard, just out of bowshot, suddenly became a hive of activity in the second week in September. Hundreds of workmen, or perhaps men-at-arms stripped of weapons and mail, swarmed over it and began to dig a trench a dozen feet deep around its circumference. I was watching them from the top of the south tower of the outer bailey with Aaron, the engineer, who was busy oiling the big ratchet on Old Thunderbolt. Their fervour was striking; I’d never seen workmen so possessed.

‘Teams. Competing,’ said Aaron and went back to his springald.

Vim strolled over from the other side of the tower where he had been joking with the members of the watch on duty. ‘It’s not just that Philip’s barons have them divided up into teams competing with each other. They know that we have a few engines like this one’ – here he gave Old Thunderbolt a slap, and earned a black scowl from Aaron – ‘and the sooner they get those earth walls up, the safer they will be.’

‘Could Old Thunderbolt reach them from here?’ I asked Aaron.

‘Waste of iron,’ the Yorkshireman said.

‘But we could attack them? We could impede them in their works?’

Aaron stared hard at me. Then he grunted at one of his assistants, who immediately came over to his side. As I watched, the two of them slowly and laboriously winched back the thick horsehair cord with a long lever, the pawl clicking loudly as it engaged with the ratchet. The two thick bow arms bent back towards the engineers, as they grunted and hauled, and it seemed to me that the entire wooden structure of the springald was quivering under the immense strain in the bow arms. Then they ceased their labour, mopped their brows, and Aaron set a yard-long bar of iron with a sharpened end, a thick ugly shaft, in the groove before the cord.

Aaron sighted along the groove, through the hole in the centre of the two bow arms. He said, ‘Two spans left’, and his assistant lifted the butt of the machine by an iron spike and moved it about ten inches.

I tried to peer along the groove to see exactly where the springald was pointed but Aaron said, ‘Clear!’ and Vim put a hand on my chest and moved me back out of the way.

‘And loose,’ said Aaron. The assistant tugged on a line, there was a sharp crack, the cord leaped forward and the bolt disappeared in a black blur. I saw it sail in a long arc and thump into the turf on the forward slope of the hill two hundred yards away, burying itself up to half its length about two dozen yards wide of a pair of workmen jogging towards the earthworks with spades on their shoulders. One of the men glanced round as the bolt landed but they didn’t break step and carried on to their place in the diggings.

‘Fifty, seventy yards,’ said Aaron. ‘Beyond that – pfft!’

‘He could shoot at them all day,’ said Vim, ‘use up maybe two score of iron bolts, probably all his stores, and kill one or two men, if he was lucky. It’s not accurate beyond fifty yards; beyond seventy you’d be fortunate to hit a barn door. You wait till they get a bit closer, Sir Alan – and they will come closer – then you’ll see what he can do.’

I left the tower feeling chastened and went to join Tilda at Mass.

The chapel was a wooden cube perched atop the stone privy block on the south side of the middle bailey. It was reached by a set of stairs beside the latrines. Vim once joked that it was a perfect arrangement as one could attend one’s bodily needs below and the needs of one’s soul above. It was lit at night by fine beeswax candles and during the day the large barred wooden window shutter was flung open, allowing the sunlight to stream in and illuminate the handsome golden cross on the altar. It was unusually quiet inside, a place of peace, as only knights and senior officers were permitted to worship therein: rain or shine, the common people were ministered to in the open air of the courtyard.