The Iron Castle Read online

  He summoned his falconer, who had been standing in a corner, and handed him the gyrfalcon. The man took the bird gingerly, as though afraid of it.

  ‘Thirty-five men, sir, and Master John Nailor, my lord of Locksley’s master-at-arms.’

  ‘Thirty-five – good, good. I can always use more men. Tell me, Sir Alan, do you like my gyrfalcon? She is called Guinevere.’

  ‘She is indeed a noble bird, my lord,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t she. First-class hunter. I’ve had her since she was a chick. She will feed from no one but me. A proud but loyal creature, you might even say honourable. Do you suppose that birds can have honour, Sir Alan?’

  I shrugged, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘You don’t? Men claim to have honour – I dare say I would claim a little for myself. And women, too. So why not a bird? Guinevere is a creature of violence, but controlled violence – she kills at my command and at my command only. You might say she chooses to serve me, like a knight. And she does so loyally. She could not be induced to serve another man. Why should she not be called honourable?’

  I summoned my wits. ‘I would say, sir, that honour stems from a freedom to act in one way or another – for good or ill. And I did not think that a bird can act in any way that is not part of her nature, or instilled by months of training.’

  There was a silence. The lord of Falaise stared at me over his beak of a nose. The silence stretched out long and painfully thin. I felt an overwhelming urge to fill the quiet. ‘And a bird, the Bible teaches us, has no soul,’ I said. ‘Can a creature without a soul have honour?’

  As soon as I said it, I wished the words back in my mouth.

  ‘All men have souls,’ said de Burgh. ‘But many of them have no honour. Some so-called men look only to their own advantage without the slightest regard for oaths to their rightful lord, for their avowed loyalty … For example, a mercenary such as your good self fights only for silver’ – I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks – ‘can you truly trust someone like that? Would you, for instance, sell your sword elsewhere, to Duke Arthur or King Philip, perhaps, if offered a fatter purse?’

  His question was a whisker from a mortal insult. He was saying he thought I had no honour and that soldiers such as me were little better than greedy merchants.

  ‘I serve the Earl of Locksley,’ I said, through clenched teeth. ‘I swore an oath a long time ago that I would be loyal to him until death. I will never break that oath. His enemies are my enemies, and I will serve no other. That is my honour.’

  ‘But he, too, fights for silver, does he not?’

  I had had enough of this conversation. I remained silent.

  ‘Well,’ said Lord de Burgh after a long pause, ‘I mustn’t keep you. Your men will no doubt be hungry – better feed them before they steal all the bread from the pantry. Ha-ha! Bertier, my steward, will see them housed and fed, and their horses stabled. You will find him in the kitchens at this hour. Down the staircase and take the passage to your right. You will find quarters suitable for you and your servant in the East Tower, on the other side of the courtyard. Perhaps you would be so good as to dine with me and the other knights tomorrow. At noon.’

  I bowed silently and made to leave. ‘One more thing, Sir Alan. The bath house is in the east of the castle. Perhaps you would care to visit it before you next present yourself to me. I must not question your honour but the knights of this garrison, both hirelings and those who serve out of a sense of duty to their lord, are expected to maintain certain standards. Remember that.’

  I walked out of the hall with my guts seething and, as I approached the head of the stone spiral stairs, I turned to Kit to say something further about his failure to do his duty by me as my squire – and was knocked flying by a man sprinting up the stairs and smashing into me with his shoulder. I leaped back to my feet, my hand reaching for the dagger at my waist and glared at the man.

  ‘Mind where you are going, oaf,’ he said coolly.

  I was an instant from burying the blade in his belly.

  ‘You, sir, knocked into me,’ I said icily.

  ‘You dare to answer back, cur – don’t you know who I am?’ said this fellow, a tall, big-boned fattish creature dressed in a fine red satin tunic, with a sword and a jewelled dagger at his belt. He was a knight at the very least, more likely a lord, but he seemed to me very young, not yet twenty. His lank black hair was greasy, though well combed and a rash of pimples adorned his plump cheeks and ample chin. He, too, had his hand on his dagger hilt.

  ‘Cur?’ I said. I was past boiling point by now, and if he wanted a fight …

  ‘He doesn’t know who you are, Benedict,’ said a calm voice behind me. ‘How could he? He only arrived this hour.’

  Hubert de Burgh was at my shoulder.

  ‘May I present, Sir Alan Dale, a knight in the service of the famous Earl of Locksley. Sir Alan, this is my nephew Sir Benedict Malet, who loyally serves me,’ said the lord of Falaise.

  We stared at each other for a few moments, but the tension was seeping away. I was honour-bound to be courteous to de Burgh, and doubtless I would be thrown into company with this rude nephew often enough, too. I gave him a stiff bow of greeting.

  ‘He’s a knight? Why, he looks as if he’s been sleeping in a pig-pen for a week!’ said this spotty lard-arse.

  ‘Benedict, where are your manners? Sir Alan might be a sell-sword but he is a member of our household. Tell him you are sorry and that will be the end of it.’

  The ill-mannered lordling said nothing, just stared at me with contempt.

  ‘Benedict. You will apologise to Sir Alan this instant!’ Hubert de Burgh’s voice cracked like a whip.

  ‘Apologies,’ muttered Benedict, dropping his head, a black forelock falling over his eyes.

  I nodded curtly but said nothing; Kit and I moved away, past Benedict, down the spiral stairs and out of their sight.

  I met up with Little John in the vast courtyard of Falaise Castle towards dusk, after Kit and I had found our quarters in the East Tower and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the spartan circular room there. The Wolves had been assigned space in the wooden barracks that lined the southern wall, and they were taking a meal of tripe soup and bread at a long table in the big hall in the middle of the courtyard when I joined them.

  John was in a cheerful mood. ‘We have landed on our feet here, Alan,’ he told me with a genial slap across my shoulders. ‘Good food, dry lodgings and nothing to do but a few patrols from time to time to make sure the Bretons don’t try to sneak across the border and bugger our beautiful Norman sheep.’

  ‘You find this post to your liking, then?’ I said a little sourly.

  ‘Do you not?’ he replied. ‘What ails you? You look like a kicked dog.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right. A foul-mannered knight called me a cur earlier today.’

  ‘You didn’t kill him, did you?’ said John, scratching his groin. ‘There are rules about not fighting among ourselves. Robin’s orders. Who was he anyway?’

  ‘He calls himself Sir Benedict Malet – he’s Lord de Burgh’s nephew. And yes, I refrained from killing him, this time.’

  ‘No point sulking over it. I’ve heard of this Malet fellow. One of the castle sergeants mentioned him. Fat lad. He commands a conroi of the castle guards. Unsure of himself, or so they tell me. Doesn’t want to appear weak or inexperienced, though he is both. A big puppy – not dangerous, just incompetent. I’d forget all about him, Alan, if I were you. Have something to eat.’

  Kit and I helped ourselves to the thick soup from the cauldron hanging over the hearth, then sat back down with Little John and the men.

  ‘We’re going on patrol tomorrow at dawn,’ I told the Wolves. ‘Just a short ride to get the lie of the land. Back by mid-morning.’

  There were a few nods.

  ‘One more thing. The lord of this castle seems to think that as sell-swords we are less trustworthy than the other soldiers here, that we have
less honour. He is wrong. And we will demonstrate to him that we are the equals of any man here in skill, loyalty, honour and discipline. You are not to get blind drunk or brawl with the other men-at-arms, or rape the local maidens, or go absent without leave, or misbehave in any way. Any lapses in discipline will result in severe punishment. I will not be shamed by you. Does everybody here understand me?’

  Murmurs of acknowledgement from the faces around the long table.

  ‘If I could just add a little something, Sir Alan,’ said Little John, his red face sober and deadly serious. ‘I will rip the dangling balls off any one of you sorry bastards who steps out of line. I will then cook ’em and feed ’em to you personally.’

  Chapter Four

  We travelled south on patrol the next morning in the cool, pink air of a Norman dawn, riding into the gently forested hills between Falaise and the County of Maine. I slightly regretted my intemperate words to the men the night before because, while the Wolves might have looked a rough crew – dirty and unkempt, with patches of animal pelts sewn on to their mail, and armed any old how with a variety of swords, long knives, poleaxes, spears and even the odd spiked cudgel – they were, in fact, very competent soldiers. Robin had been training them for a year or more and they obeyed orders immediately and without question. They knew how to patrol, with scouts on each flank, and a pair of riders ahead and behind the main column, and they were alert and reasonably quiet as they rode – very little banter or raucous laughter. Solid, professional men, doing a job they knew well. Their leader and Little John’s deputy for keeping order in the troop was a vintenar called Claes, whom I knew as one of Vim’s original men. He was a steady, fair-haired fellow with one eye – the other had been lost two years before in a desperate battle at the fortress of Montségur, where he had fought at my side. I was comforted by his presence: he knew his men and he knew me, and a hard-earned respect existed between us.

  Claes told me that in the past year the Wolves had seen little fighting – a few skirmishes in the eastern marches against the French there – and the men were eager for battle and the promise of loot from a defeated enemy or the prospect of a rich knight captured for ransom. They were almost all Flemings, with a scattering of Normans, some French and even a German or two, and it was the threat of starvation, one bad harvest or a crop destroyed by war, that had driven most of them to sell their swords to Robin. Some were veterans, such as Christophe, a scruffy grey-beard nearly fifty who before I was born had served as a man-at-arms with lionhearted Richard in his days as a rebellious prince in Aquitaine. He was nicknamed ‘Scarecrow’ by the other men for his perpetually raggedy clothes and odd hair that stood out stiffly from his head in random clumps, and had fought everywhere, it seemed, and knew the many aspects of battle as well as he knew his own calloused hands. He had been a cavalry trooper, a crossbowman, a spearman, even a miner – gouging into the bases of besieged castles to bring down walls. Some of the men were relative newcomers to war, such as Little Niels, a tiny joker who resembled a hedgerow bird, all quick jerky movements and bright inquisitive eyes. Niels was not yet seventeen and he seemed to think the soldier’s life was a grand adventure. He had been an apprentice in a wealthy cloth town, had hated it, and had run off to seek his fortune. Now he was a Wolf.

  As we rode out, Little Niels moved his horse up alongside mine, and with much tugging of his forelock, smiling and bobbing nervously in the saddle and other outward semblances of respect, humbly begged if he might ask me an important question.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, looking down into his cheery little face. I could hear Little John just behind me growling like an angry bear at the intrusion, but I stilled him with a hand.

  ‘Come on, man, speak up.’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s like this. We was wondering, all of us, like, about the spoils, and how they might be divided among us.’

  Some of the men in the column had quickened their pace and I could sense their horses at my back and ears straining to hear my words.

  ‘A very good question,’ I said. ‘It will be like this. Any spoils of war, goods that we take as legitimate prizes – cattle, gold or jewellery, fine cloth and the like – will be sold in the market at Falaise, or elsewhere, and the coin will be divided among all of us. Ransoms, too. But I do mean legitimate prizes. I don’t want the Norman people preyed upon. That is an iron rule. Understand? But we may find ourselves in enemy territory, and if we do, the pickings might well be rich. As your captain, I will take a share of one fifth, Claes and Little John, as my officers, will take a one-fifth share between them, and the rest – three-fifths – will be divided equally between the men.’

  ‘Can’t say fairer than that, captain,’ said Little Niels. ‘Two-fifths for our three officers, three-fifths for all thirty-three men.’

  I looked at his bright-eyed red-cheeked face to see if he was making mock of me. It was impossible to tell: his expression was quizzical but perfectly respectful.

  ‘Just one more question, captain.’

  ‘Go on,’ I frowned at him.

  ‘How would I go about becoming an officer?’

  His question was greeted with a roar of laughter from behind us and Little John’s bellow: ‘Niels, you get back in the ranks, you impertinent little shit, or I will personally tear you several new ones. Get back here where you belong, lad.’

  I turned in my saddle and addressed the horsemen. ‘Any man here might one day become an officer. If you obey my orders, keep my rules and fight with the valour of lions when the time comes – any one of you might rise to become a vintenar.’

  I paused for a heartbeat. ‘Even Little Niels.’

  My quip was met with more laughter, genuine as far as I could tell. And for a mile or so Little Niels was subjected to some gentle ribbing from his fellows who called him ‘the captain-general’ and ‘my gracious lord’. They seemed a contented group, to my eyes. Spirited but not lawless. There was no doubt that a few of the Wolves were genuinely bad men – bandits by trade, or murderers on the run from their manors – but most were poor men driven to take up arms to put food in their bellies. I liked them, to be honest, and for the most part they seemed to like me.

  The patrol returned to Falaise without event a little before noon, and I had ample time to wash and be dressed by Kit in the best clothes that I possessed: a decent blue silk tunic and grey hose – which were clean but a little saggy at the knee as a result of their advanced age and Kit’s clumsy laundering – good kidskin shoes, and a black felt hat with an eagle’s feather fixed in place with a blue enamel broach. Kit had laboured long and hard over the outfit and, while I was never going to be mistaken for a prince of royal blood, I hoped for his sake and mine that I would not disgrace myself with my apparel.

  The meal was a dull one. I was placed far from Hubert de Burgh and his fat nephew Benedict, at the end of the long table – which did not displease me in itself except that it emphasised the point that as a paid warrior I was scarcely respectable; indeed not much better than a servant. There were a dozen other knights at the meal, little wine was served and only a dozen platters of food emerged from the kitchens for the twenty or so guests. There was no music, and the only entertainment was a sad-faced juggler standing in the corner, who did amazing things with three, four and five silver balls that he kept aloft with great skill; although his air of abject misery prevented me from enjoying the performance overmuch. I spoke little and, apart from a chilly nod from de Burgh at the beginning of the repast, I was ignored by the company. Young Benedict refused to recognise me at all – indeed he paid little attention to anyone and seemed determined to eat as much as he possibly could – but I cannot say it grieved me sorely.

  I returned to my chamber in the East Tower mid-afternoon, sober and reflecting that I had not impressed my new lord, nor yet made any friends in my new home. So be it, I told myself. I would keep my head down, attend to my duties with the Wolves and wait for Robin’s call to arms.

  So the days passed in an unevent
ful, repetitive parade. I went out with the Wolves three or four days a week, patrolling the countryside south to Maine and west as far as the Brittany border. We spent long chilly nights on the battlements, doing our share of the sentry duties, staring into the empty darkness hour after hour. One night when making my rounds of the sentries, I came across Christophe crouching down behind the parapet. His face was pressed against the wall but he was easily recognisable by the clumps of hair jutting out from under his helmet. I thought at first that he was asleep, a grave crime for a sentry, and a surprising lapse for a soldier as experienced as he. But when I came closer I saw he was on one knee picking with a dirty finger at the mortar between the massive stones of the curtain wall.

  ‘What are you doing, Christophe?’

  ‘It’s too dry, sir – look!’ He held out a handful of grey powdery sludge. ‘It hasn’t been mixed right.’

  By the light of my pine torch, I peered at the crumbly melange of sand and lime in his big paw.

  ‘Look at it, sir! It’s a bloody disgrace, sir, and no two ways about it. Too much sand, not enough water. A rush job, I’d say. Done on the cheap by some bandit who is no more a mason than he is a merman. If the Bretons ever got serious about taking this place, we wouldn’t last a week.’

  Christophe’s words alarmed me somewhat.

  ‘Is the whole curtain wall like this?’

  ‘No, sir, if it were, not a stone would be standing on another. It looks like a repair job. A shoddily done repair job. Just this section here, I reckon.’

  ‘You think if the Bretons were to bombard us it would fall?’

  ‘If they knew where to strike, sir. But that’s not the problem. The problem would be the mines. If they knew this mortar here was so weak they’d dig their bloody great mines right under our feet, and then there’d be the Devil to pay.’