Michael JECKS - The Oath

‘They’re serious about taking the castle,’ Sir Charles remarked.

Simon was grateful for his relaxed attitude. When Simon looked at him, Sir Charles was peering at the men scurrying about below them with an air of calm amusement. This was what the knight had been bred and trained for. Not so Simon. As he watched the great siege machines being prepared, their arms being slowly winched down, their cradles loaded with massive rocks, he felt a sinking in his belly. Those rocks would slam into the side of the walls here with devastating effect. Surely nothing could withstand them.

A few minutes later, Sir Stephen and Earl Hugh arrived on the walkways, and the Earl stared out with as much shock as Simon himself had felt. ‘So many! So many!’ he said. ‘What have we done to deserve all this?’

Simon had not been so close to the Earl before. He had grown to detest the man’s son, Sir Hugh le Despenser, because the knight had selected Simon as an enemy, and Simon had been badly tested, but seeing Earl Hugh’s horror, he felt sympathy for him. The scene was enough to rock any man to the core of his soul.

He gazed around at the other side of the river to the south. There too, large numbers of men scurried about, building wooden shields to protect fixed positions. Trees were being felled from a little wood, and hauled to the city by oxen, then cut up and attached to frames to protect archers and artillery from the arrows of the castle and the city.

But when he glanced east over the city itself, he was struck by the lack of preparation. True, there were some barricades in the streets which would serve to slow men attacking along them, but surely they would not stop a force like this, were they to gain entry.

Sir Charles saw the direction of his gaze, and commented, ‘I do not think we can count on the city to halt their attack.’

‘I can see no one trying to save it,’ Simon said.

‘These fellows are merchants and peasants, not warriors,’ Sir Charles said with a chuckle. ‘They saw their city captured only ten years ago, and they felt the indignity of failure, as well as seeing the result of their disobedience. Exile to many, the loss of property to more. It was a disaster. And their city was sorely hurt by the King’s siege train. Why should they wish to see the same happen again?’

His attention was already moving on. Now he eyed the streets below, and Simon followed the direction of his gaze. There was a group of men walking from a large building, and all standing before it, involved in animated conversation.

‘Sir Charles, what are they doing?’ Simon asked, pointing.

The knight shook his head. ‘I wonder.’

While they stood, Sir Laurence had arrived and stood grimly surveying the people down in the street. ‘This is not good.’

Simon looked at him from the corner of his eye, wondering how to broach the subject of Cecily’s murder. But it did not seem the moment, somehow. Not while the city was at risk of being overrun. Instead, he glanced down into the streets again.

Where Simon had seen the little huddle, now there was quite a group, all standing together and talking. Simon could see one man expostulating with another, then three or four who appeared to hurry up to them, listening. After a short altercation, the bulk of the men ran towards the castle, and there Simon could see nothing of them because of the line of the western wall, but the others set off at a run to the northern gate, and Simon watched with a frown as they disappeared behind a building. ‘What are they up to?’ he wondered.

Sir Laurence paled. ‘They are going to open the gates! Sir Stephen, Earl Hugh, the city is about to capitulate, I think.’

Earl Hugh spun round and stared. There was a greyness in his features. ‘No! No, they wouldn’t. They must know that they only have to hold faith to the King and he will rescue us. They’d be mad to open the gates now! Don’t they realise the King will exact terrible revenge for a betrayal like that?’’

Sir Stephen said nothing. He had darted to the corner of the battlement, and was staring down at the roads. ‘Leave it to me, my lord,’ he said, and was off into the tower. Soon he was below in the court, bellowing for his squire and servants. In a short space of time, there was a hoarse shout, and Sir Stephen ran from the gates with six men behind him, all armed with axes, knives and swords. A moment or two later, Simon saw them pelting up the roadway in pursuit of the men he had seen before, chasing north towards the city gate.

‘Odd,’ Simon said musingly.

‘What?’ Sir Charles said.

‘I’d thought that the second party were going to guard us here, so that no one could get to the city gate and prevent their opening it.’

Sir Laurence stared at him, and then cupped his hands and shouted to the guard on the gatehouse: ‘Is there a band of men before the castle’s gate?’

The answer came back that there was, but Sir Stephen had passed through them without trouble, and now they stood apparently ready to repulse any force from the castle.

Sir Charles leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, while Sir Laurence set his jaw and glared down at the city. ‘I could get some men,’ he muttered. Bellowing down into the ward, he ordered a party of men-at-arms to gather weapons, and strode to the tower’s door.

Earl Hugh looked from Sir Charles to the city with perplexity. ‘What is happening?’

‘It would seem that Sir Stephen is also about to capitulate, my lord. I think that he is helping the city to open the gates.’

It was as he spoke that they all heard the roaring noise: the sound of a thousand men cheering as they entered the city.

Earl Hugh slumped as Sir Laurence returned. The knight gripped the nearest battlement and stared, but Earl Hugh could not look. He turned and slowly made his way to the staircase, his face waxen, like a man who had already died.

St Peter’s Church, Bristol

The job of fosser at St Peter’s Church in Bristol was not generally an arduous one, Saul thought; mind, it was possible that his duties would soon become more onerous.

As Saul the Fosser hobbled along St Peter Street, he reckoned that it was all to the good. Men tended to die quite often, and if their deaths were hastened for reasons outside his own control, he was content to take the pennies each body represented as his due.

‘Ach, God’s pains,’ he muttered as he came to another of the irregular barricades flung over the roadway to stop horses. ‘Oi! How do I get past here?’

A face appeared at the top, that of a boy aged ten or eleven. ‘You’ll have to go round, Grandad. There’s no path here.’

Cursing all little boys under his breath, the fosser went along an alley as the lad had indicated, and soon found his way to the church.

There was no burial today. He left his spade in the lean-to shed at the side of the church, and instead walked over the long grass of the cemetery. There were three mounds of soil. Two had sunk quite well now, both being a few days old, and only Cecily’s was yet rounded and proud of the grass.

He went to the nearer of the low graves and cast a wary look about him before thrusting his hand into the loose soil. It took no time to find the packet, and he took it out, shaking the muddy soil from it and shoving it into his shirt. Then he rose and strode from the cemetery as quickly as his gammy leg would allow.

It was an ancient wound, that. When younger, he had been apprenticed to a bowyer, but then he had had an accident: borrowing his master’s horse without permission he took part in a race against a friend. His horse put a hoof into a rabbit-hole at full gallop, and crashed to the ground, throwing Saul over and over. His prize was a badly broken leg that left him crippled, and the loss of his apprenticeship. He was lucky that he wasn’t forced to replace the beast, which had to be put out of its misery. That was the end of his aspirations. Now he lived from one day to the next, surviving on the pennies he was given for each burial and a small sum for keeping the cemetery neat.