A catalogue of catastrop.., p.22
A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 22
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
Markham’s voice sounded in my ear. ‘William Marshal’s forces have been sighted. That’s what all the excitement is about. Eyes peeled, Max. If Nicola’s standing up there on the tower, then she’s an easy shot for someone with a sniperscope. Or even a sharp-eyed bowman. And remember, they could be dressed as someone from either side.’
I interrupted him. ‘Something’s happening down here as well.’
The man I assumed to be Geoffrey de Serlant was running down from the Lucy Tower towards the north gate. One hand on his sword, the other waving in the air to keep his balance, he was tearing down the rough steps cut into the steep-sided motte. Yet another example of armour not being as restrictive as sometimes thought. I sighed. Still thinking like an historian.
He was shouting as he ran. I couldn’t pick out what he was saying. Word of the reinforcements must have got round very quickly because everyone now was shouting and cheering him on. I could almost smell the relief. William Marshal’s army had been sighted. The siege would be lifted. They waved their hats in the air, yelling and slapping each other on the back.
Two men dragged a plunging horse from the stables. Sir Geoffrey hurled himself dramatically into the saddle. The horse himself reared dramatically and then set off across the bailey at full gallop. Men dramatically threw themselves out of the way because it was very apparent neither horse nor rider had any intention of stopping. It was a splendidly theatrical gesture and both horse and rider were lucky the guards got the gate open in time. Sir Geoffrey thundered through to cheers and whoops and disappeared in the traditional cloud of dust. The gate slammed to behind him.
I drew back into the angle of a wooden hut built against a stone building. Somewhere quiet and discreet but I could still see what was going on. I watched the people run past, looking for someone – or more likely several someones – who just didn’t look quite right.
‘Hope the pod will be OK,’ said Markham in my ear as yet another missile dropped from the sky to hit a range of long, low wooden buildings over to my left. They exploded in a shower of splinters, manure, dust and terrified chickens.
I straightened up. I hadn’t been in any sort of danger – the hit had been well to my left – but you do tend instinctively to duck when bloody great rocks are hurtling down from the heavens.
I tried to reassure him. ‘That pod’s taken everything I’ve thrown at it over the years – I wouldn’t worry too much. Plenty of other things to worry about.’
Having said that, typically, after those exciting few minutes, everything went quiet. Men slowly emerged from whatever cover they’d managed to find, looked up at the sky for a moment and then carried on with their normal morning tasks.
This often happens in warfare. It’s all go for half an hour and the rest of the day is spent hanging around waiting for someone to kill you. I suspected the impending arrival of William’s army was causing a massive strategy session at rebel HQ and they’d ordered an immediate ceasefire to rethink their tactics.
If William hoped the rebels would march out to meet him on the flat ground outside the city, he was to be disappointed. They would refuse to surrender their advantage, stubbornly remaining in the city.
‘They’re in a sandwich now,’ said Markham, from his eyrie up on the ramparts. ‘There’s the castle, held by royalists – one slice of bread. Then there’s the rebel-held town – that’s the filling. Then there’s William’s royalist army – the other slice of bread. It’s going to be interesting, don’t you think?’
There was no ‘going to be’ about it. It was interesting right now. There were shouts from the other side of the walls. And then everything went very quiet.
‘Don’t like the look of this,’ shouted Markham, running down the steps. ‘Heads up, Max.’
Barely had he spoken when something black and trailing flame like a comet came whistling over the walls to fragment on impact. Hundreds of pieces of burning shrapnel whizzed through the air in all directions, showering everyone in the vicinity. A man stared stupidly at his burning arm. Markham appeared from nowhere, threw the man to the ground, ripped off his hitherto despised surcoat and used it to bat at the flames. In a few seconds the flames were out. The man nodded vaguely – shock and pain, I suspected – and wandered away.
Markham climbed to his feet, took one look at me and shouted, ‘Max, you idiot – you’re on fire.’
Bloody hell – so I was. Well, that made a change. Usually it was the other way around.
Half a dozen smouldering embers had landed on my dress and caught in the folds. Even as I looked down, the glowing edges were slowly spreading outwards. No flames as yet, perhaps the modern material was fire-retardant, but any minute now . . . I remembered the man with the burning arm.
We slapped at the fabric until everything seemed more or less extinguished. I was just gloomily contemplating the damage – there went Markham’s deposit – when an elderly man appeared at my side, frightening me half to death. He was gesturing towards the Observatory Tower. He was well dressed and wore a modest chain around his neck. I wondered if he was Nicola’s steward but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I spread my arms in an eloquent gesture of non-understanding and in sheer exasperation, I think, he took my arm. Not roughly, but there was no chance to argue. He’d clearly been given instructions to remove me and removed I was going to be.
‘You’re either under arrest or being taken to a place of greater safety,’ hissed Markham, melting away out of sight. ‘Leave what’s happening out here to me. If you are under arrest, I’ll rescue you as soon as I have a moment.’
I was hustled away. Respectfully but firmly. No one else was taking any notice. They were too busy putting out the small fires around the bailey. Some of those wooden structures were well ablaze. Dark smoke and the smell of burning wood filled the air.
Up on the walls, however, men were cheering. William Marshal’s reputation preceded him. Many here obviously considered the battle as good as won. The difference in the atmosphere was amazing. Not only had reinforcements arrived but they were being led by the great William Marshal himself. Well, no, officially they were led by the Earl of Chester, but I suspected it would be William that everyone looked to.
If the steps up to the top of the wall had been bad, the ones in the Observatory Tower were even worse. I struggled to the top of the motte and stepped in through the open door. It seemed very dark after the bright sunshine outside. I took a moment to blink then gathered up my skirts and proceeded with caution. It was a long way to the top. Turn after turn after turn. I had to stop – once to get my breath and once to get a better grip on my skirt. Sixty years old or not, I bet Lady Nicola cantered up and down these ten times a day.
Eventually, hot, breathless and with aching legs, I emerged, slowly and cautiously, out on to the roof. I took a moment to let my skirts fall and arrange them decently. Despite my singed and bloody appearance, I wanted to look respectable. The steward pushed past me and went to speak to the older of the two women looking out at the fighting from the tower.
No one turned to look at me so I took the opportunity to stand quietly for a moment, getting my bearings and blinking in the sunshine. And the wind. I hadn’t realised how sheltered I’d been at ground level. The wind was really gusting up here. Over my head a pennant of some kind flapped and snapped in the breeze.
OK, Max. Concentrate. The first thing was to check out those who were up here. There was the elderly man who had brought me and a younger woman – probably Lady Nicola’s maid. A guard stood either side of the doorway – the absolute minimum she would accept, I suspected. Every other able-bodied man would be manning the walls. There were also two young lads, small and light and similarly dressed in blue. She was probably using them as runners. Carrying and receiving messages to other parts of the castle. She would expect to be kept abreast of developments at all times. This was not her first siege, after all.
Finally, Lady Nicola turned away from the view northwards to look at me.
I remembered she was a great lady and bowed. Her gaze lingered on the bloody veil still hanging from my belt, which I hoped was reinforcing my credentials as a Good Woman.
Sixty was a great age in medieval times and Lady Nicola looked every inch of it. Her hair was completely covered but her eyebrows were snowy white and her skin was criss-crossed with fine lines. Her most prominent feature was her great, bony, hooked nose. Like a parrot’s beak. Her hands, clasped before her, were arthritic and freckle-speckled and she had a prominent dowager’s hump. I think her eyes had once been brown but were now a milky grey. Faded they might be, but they were still fierce and I suspected she missed nothing.
I greeted her in Latin which I think she understood. She didn’t ask for my name and I didn’t give it. She spent a few seconds looking me up and down. I tried hard not to imagine her giving the order to have me hurled from the tower. Then she nodded and thereafter completely ignored me. Which suited me very well.
I looked around. Bloody hell, I was a bloody long way up, and the ramparts were barely higher than my waist. Lower in a few places. The gusting wind was whipping Lady Nicola’s veil around her head. She was so small and slight I was surprised she wasn’t blown off the tower completely.
We were standing on top of a tall tower, itself on top of a sturdy motte in a castle built on the top of a very steep hill. On a clear day I could probably have seen all the way to the Netherlands. And, for the record, no one was clinging, white-fingered, to the stones in their efforts not to be blown into the middle of next week. Not even me, although that could all change at any moment. But this was exactly where I wanted to be, so take a deep breath, Maxwell, and hang on to something solid. This was probably the closest I was ever going to get to heaven.
I tried to manoeuvre myself into a position where I could see what was going on and stand close to Nicola at the same time. Her maid stood just behind her and her steward at her right side, leaving her left side exposed to whoever should be out there. I was edging my way cautiously towards her when her maid very gently pulled me back, shaking her head. I was spoiling her mistress’s view. Reluctantly I took a small half step back. The old lady pointed her beaky nose at me so I took the other half as well. You didn’t argue with Lady Nicola de la Haye, even if you were trying to save her life. I’d have to think of something else. The chances were that those buggers from Insight were out there somewhere, position unknown, purpose unknown – but probably not good – and she was the second major player on the stage today.
‘Hey, I can see you up there,’ said Markham chattily in my ear. ‘Can you see me?’
I glanced around and spotted him over near the East Gate. I raised a hand and then pretended to adjust my wimple.
There are varying accounts of what happened at Lincoln, who was where and how brave they were, and sometimes it’s difficult to pick your way through it all. But most reports agree that the Earl of Chester attacked the north gate in the city walls as a diversion, while William’s men made for the north-west gate, which had been blocked up and was therefore unguarded, and entered the city that way.
Things were moving just outside the castle walls, as well. A man I suspected might be the royalist Falk de Breauté was leading a counter-attack. A small contingent of crossbowmen – about ten that I could see – was creeping across the rooftops to fire down on the besiegers. There weren’t many of them but given the way men were crammed into the place below, Falk’s men could hardly miss. Each man found himself a place, loaded his bolt, and at some signal I couldn’t see, began to fire volley after volley into the massed ranks of rebels.
‘Are you seeing this?’ said Markham, softly in my ear. ‘If there were any Insight people up on the rooftops, they’ll soon push off when they see this lot up here as well.’
‘Unless they’re disguised as Falk’s men,’ I whispered. ‘In which case we’re sitting targets up here.’
He swore briefly and closed his com.
For such a small contingent, Falk’s crossbowmen were having a massive effect. There was panic and confusion in the square below. Men fell over each other in their efforts to find cover. Between Falk’s people on the roofs and Chester’s at the gate, it was an excellent distraction from Marshal’s forces still toiling to unblock the other gate.
Nicola clapped her hands together, uttering a ‘Ha!’ of satisfaction.
It was short-lived, however. Such was the rapidity of their fire that Falk and his men soon ran out of bolts. Nicola flung a command to her steward that between the gusty wind and her Norman French, I didn’t catch. He replied briefly and pointed urgently down into the square.
Not content with assaulting from the roofs, Falk had led his men down to the streets below for a spot of hand-to-hand combat. Swords drawn, roaring defiance and death, they streamed across the marketplace, taking the fight to the rebels. Seemingly unstoppable, Falk’s men fell on them with massive ferocity, striking right and left, leaving the rebels with no option other than to fall back towards the cathedral. Which they did, but in good order, and once there and with their backs protected, they made their stand. There was fierce fighting.
I am always shocked by the savagery with which men fight. The strength, the power of their blows. The intent to kill or maim. To fight in battle is very different from a scrap on the football pitch or in the bar. All these men were fighting for their lives. They shouted, roared, hacked, kicked, stamped, stabbed. No one gave any quarter. Lose your footing and you were dead. Hesitate for one moment and you were dead. Two-handed, they hewed at each other. Even from all the way up here I could hear the clash of metal on metal, the war cries and the shrieks of the wounded and the dying. The tide of battle flowed to and fro. From up here it was very hard to tell who, if anyone, was winning.
I was dividing my time between watching out for Lady Nicola who appeared to have been born without fear and was hanging over the battlements in a way that made my blood run cold, keeping an eye on the fighting below, ensuring Markham hadn’t been caught up in all the chaos, and not being blown off that bloody tower.
I’ve never forgotten standing up there, halfway to heaven, with the wind whipping at my skirts. I remember the brilliant forget-me-not blue sky above me, with its scudding white clouds; the beauty of the distant landscape, serene and silent. And the red slaughter below. Men locked together in their death struggles and barely able to move. The dead held up by the living.
The ferocity of Falk’s attack had cleaved a great wedge through the rebel forces. The din was terrific. With their backs literally to the wall, the rebels rallied. Reinforcements erupted from the surrounding streets and suddenly the wedge became a trap. Falk and his men were surrounded. Cut off from the castle and slowly being hacked to pieces.
Lady Nicola slammed her fist into the stonework. I might have only a little Norman French, but I know bad language when I hear it. She fired off a series of rapid instructions. The two young runners disappeared through the doorway. I began to edge towards her again. Should anyone have any ideas about eliminating her, now would be the ideal moment. With Sir Geoffrey on his way to meet William Marshal, Lady Nicola was the person very much in charge.
Below us, soldiers of the garrison were opening the East Gate. Four men struggled to remove the giant wooden cross-beam and another four – two on each side – began to heave them open.
Everyone’s attention would be on the drama below. There would never be a better moment to take out Lady Nicola. I stood as close as I could get to her left-hand side. Her maid was on the other. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that a sniper would be unable to distinguish between the women on top of the tower. And wouldn’t care anyway. All three of us – mistress, maid and me – would have died.
A body of men erupted out of the castle through the open gate and fought their way to join those of Falk de Breauté. There was utter confusion. I had no idea who was who. In any Calvin Cutter holo, medieval armies were always beautifully dressed. One side would be in jaunty red and yellow and the other side in blue and white check – thus enabling audiences to know who is who at any given point. This was just a struggling melee of similarly grey- and brown-clad men.
The rescue party were successful, however, retrieving the overenthusiastic de Breauté and his little band and fighting their way back through the gates, to the accompaniment of loud cheering from the garrison, who were supporting them with arrows, bolts, rocks and great enthusiasm.
The diversion had succeeded in its purpose. With everyone’s attention on the exciting events outside the castle, the city’s north-west gate was finally breached. We heard the horns, the hoofbeats, the war-cries. William Marshal himself led the charge even though he was seventy years old. The story goes that so keen was he to get to the fighting that he nearly galloped off without his helmet. A man had to run after him with it.
Banners flying, the mounted knights were galloping through the streets. I could hear them before I could see them, appearing and disappearing between gaps in the houses.
And then – without warning – they were here. Suddenly. Below us. Erupting into view. The sight was terrifying. Enormous horses with equally enormous hooves struck sparks from the cobbles. Echoes bounced off the walls. The narrow streets were packed from side to side with riders and horses and nothing could stand against them.
Their riders were equally terrifying. Fully armoured, visors down. The area was too cramped for lances – they held their bloody swords aloft and got stuck in. Anyone getting in their way or losing their footing wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d end their days as an unpleasant stain on the cobbles.
Still tightly packed, the entire mass of horses and riders turned, almost on a sixpence – I was very impressed at their control over their horses – to approach the castle from the north. With a roar, they erupted into the space between the castle and the cathedral. The rebels didn’t stand a chance. Many flung down their swords to flee but more and more riders were piling into the square, pushing the solid mass of foot soldiers back before them, either to fall and be trampled under the horses’ hooves or crushed against the walls.
