Insurrection (30 page)

‘Raise the drawbridge!’

He stumbled in the dizzy descent and just managed to stop himself tumbling headlong down the steep steps, his fingers scraping dust from the walls. Recovering his balance, he continued on, still shouting. He collided with Simon near the bottom, who was sprinting up. ‘
Raise the drawbridge!
’ Hugh shouted in his face, pushing the man ahead of him.

In the guardroom, Ulf was on his feet, bleary-eyed and confused. ‘We’re under attack?’

‘Here,’ said Hugh, grabbing two swords and thrusting one at him.

Simon had gone pale, but took a shield and sword from the neat stack of weapons. ‘How many?’

‘Hundreds,’ snapped Hugh, ‘maybe more.’

‘Dear God,’ breathed Ulf, his eyes clearing as he followed Hugh and Simon to the archway that led down a tight twist of steps to the ground floor of the tower, where a small chamber, built into the thickness of the wall, contained the winch for the drawbridge, which adjoined the end of a long wooden bridge that spanned the moat.

In the early days of building, soon after the war, when the town walls and towers were slowly going up, the drawbridge had always been raised at night. But for the past few years, with the labourers coming and going so often, they relied instead on the portcullis to bar entry to thieves and beggars.

As Hugh reached the bottom, he shouted behind him to Ulf, who was limping awkwardly down on his injured leg. ‘Raise the alarm. We’ll work the winch.’

Faint sounds came from across the water, the dull thud of many feet pounding the frost-packed earth.

Hugh and Simon entered the winch chamber as Ulf stumbled down the last few steps, out into the arched vault between the towers, spanned by the portcullis. A torch burned from a bracket on the wall. Ulf halted in its glow, staring through the iron bars of the portcullis, across the bridge to the opposite banks of the moat. There was a tide of men flooding from the woods, visible in the growing light. Ulf’s eyes widened. He could see ladders being carried by lines of men and the weapons in their raised fists weren’t swords or spears, but axes, hammers and picks, as if they were a mad horde of labourers rushing in to start a day’s work. As the drawbridge ropes snapped taut and the boards wobbled, Ulf heard Hugh and Simon grunting with effort, the winch shrieking in protest, unused for so long. The first wave of attackers funnelled along the bridge.

Ulf, frozen in the glow of the torch, didn’t see one man on the bank tug an arrow from the quiver at his belt, didn’t see him fix it to the bow in his hands, aim and pull back. The missile shot through the darkness, invisible until the last second, when Ulf, who was turning towards the tower where the bell was stored, caught its blur. Too late. The old guard was thrown back as the arrow punched into him, piercing his gambeson. He didn’t have time to make a sound as the awful force wrenched through him, snatching away his breath. Beyond the portcullis the drawbridge was inching up, but the first attackers were leaping on to the boards, their weight forcing it back down.

‘Ulf! For the sake of Christ!’ Hugh shouted, as he struggled with the winch. ‘The bell!’ Hearing nothing but drumming footsteps, he left Simon heaving on the handle and ran out. Hugh threw himself back in as an arrow came flying past. Ulf was on the ground, a few feet away. Hugh breathed a curse and crouched, glancing round the edge of the opening. There were lots of men beyond, murmuring breathlessly. The Welsh only came into Caernarfon to trade during the day. Most of them had been banished when King Edward established the site for his new seat of government, their houses pulled down to make way for the town’s foundations, the timber used for building works. Hugh didn’t understand their language. Here in this English town in the heart of  Wales he hadn’t needed to.

More men were vaulting on to the drawbridge. A ladder had been let down the side to the boggy bank that stretched around the curtain walls. Hugh heard splashing as men disappeared over the side, descending into the shallow mud. Simon was straining at the winch, shouting for help. It was no use. They could never raise it now. Their only hope lay in alerting the rest of the garrison to the attack. Hugh pushed himself back inside. ‘Leave it,’ he told Simon. ‘There’re too many. Ulf’s dead.’

Simon held on to the winch for a moment longer, then let go, the rope coiling back round sharply. He watched as Hugh hefted his shield. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I need to get to the bell.’

Hugh paused in the doorway, staring across the small stretch of torch-lit ground towards the arched opening that led into the opposite tower. Bending down, holding his shield up to cover his left side and head, he sucked in a breath, refusing to let his eyes look at the prone form of Ulf, his splinted leg splayed beside him. Hugh breathed a prayer, then launched himself into the open space between the towers. There was a shout above the breathless murmurs beyond the portcullis, followed a moment later by a sharp concussion in his left arm as something thumped into the shield. Hugh stumbled with the impact, then felt another strike, this time in his calf, followed by ferocious pain. He fell with a cry, the shield crashing down on top of him. Another arrow plunged into his thigh as he lay screaming. Under the rim of the shield, through eyes slitted with agony, he saw many men jumping down from the bridge on to the banks. His gaze flickered dimly over one in their midst, broad-shouldered and black-haired, wearing a fur-lined cloak. He was carrying a massive hammer in both hands and on his head was a band of scratched and dented gold. He looked like some warrior king, stepping out of the dark and distant past. Hugh felt someone grab him under the arms and twisted round to see Simon’s clenched face. Arrows lanced past as the guard hauled him back into the safety of the tower.

Hugh gritted his teeth and put his head back on the stone floor of the winch room, feeling sweat breaking out all over his body. He was freezing, except for the two bolts of fiery pain in his calf and thigh. ‘Upstairs,’ he hissed through his teeth. ‘Alert – the castle.’

Simon hesitated, staring at him, then disappeared up the tower stairs. Hugh lay gasping, hearing his footsteps fade. Nearer, were the dull thuds of hammers against stone. It sounded as though the tools had been muffled.

Reaching the guardroom, Simon halted, looking wildly around. Alert the castle how? He could shout, but it was unlikely anyone would hear him. His gaze fell on the fire. He went to it, gazing hopelessly at the bright flames, then caught sight of Ulf’s stick, still propped against the wall. Unfastening his belt with shaking hands, he hauled off his gambeson, which was padded with straw, and wrenched his undershirt over his head. Grabbing Ulf’s stick, he bundled the shirt around the top of it, then ripped open the gambeson. Crouching beside the basket of logs, his bare chest prickling in the heat, he stuffed straw and shards of kindling into the folds of the shirt. As he thrust the end of the stick into the flames, it caught, flaring yellow. Simon rose and raced up the steps to the tower top, cursing as the wind fanned the flames towards him, threatening to blow them out. He reached the top and crouched, swinging the beacon back and forth, as the twigs and straw went up and the material burned, showering his bare chest with cinders.

26

In the Tower’s inner ward, on a patch of ground by the orchards, a group of young men had gathered with their horses. Their winter cloaks were wrapped tight around them, long riding boots caked with mud, faces mottled by the cold. A few bore tethered birds of prey on their gloved hands. The knights carried speckled sakers from the Holy Land, the squires smoke-coloured lanners. Moving among the men were several girls, the hems of their gowns sodden. The wind snatched at their mantles and sent flurries of rust-coloured leaves scattering from piles that the servants in the orchards were trying vainly to sweep up. The sky over London was low and leaden, threatening more rain.

Autumn had arrived from out of tranquil September skies, the winds howling in ahead of a week-long deluge that drowned the shires of England. The Thames burst its banks, flooding a row of slaughterhouses and polluting the streets with a bloody sludge. The labourers of the Tower were kept busy mending a leak in the king’s bedchamber, where rainwater ruined a rug that had belonged to Eleanor. The damaged carpet had been the least of the king’s concerns, for the storms had struck the south coast just as the first half of his fleet set sail for Gascony. The treacherous wind blew half the departing ships back to Portsmouth and forced the rest to shelter down the coast at Plymouth. Nor was the inclement weather the only thing that had hampered Edward’s move towards France and his warmongering cousin. Following the spring parliament, the king turned to the Church to fund his campaign, but found the clergy unwilling to open their coffers for his cause. When Edward threatened to outlaw them, the Dean of St Paul’s crumbled in the face of his furious demands, but there was little doubt that the delay had enabled Philippe to gain a firmer hold over Gascony.

Robert glanced round from checking his stirrup lengths, hearing a peal of laughter. Two girls were behind him watching a servant chase the scurrying leaves with a broom. One, barely out of childhood, wore a dove-grey gown under a mantle lined with miniver that wisped about her pale neck. Elizabeth, the king’s youngest daughter, had inherited her father’s long limbs and her mother’s dark hair, strands of which had floated free from beneath her cowl and switched about her face. As Robert watched, she tugged one impatiently behind her ear and leaned over to whisper something to the older girl beside her, Helena, who had springy auburn hair and milky skin that was chapped a provocative red at her cheeks and lips. On her gloved hand was a merlin, its wings ruffled by the wind. The flame-haired girl, a daughter of the Earl of Warwick, was promised to a high-ranking knight of the king’s household, but for some weeks now Robert had been unable to take his eyes off her, despite quiet warnings from Humphrey. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a young man staring at him. The rangy, red-haired knight with a grim expression was Helena’s brother, Guy de Beauchamp, Warwick’s heir. Robert turned back to his horse, shortening the stirrup with a forceful wrench.

‘Are you ready, Sir Robert?’ Humphrey called, heading across. The tall knight had a skin of wine in one hand. He gestured at the expanse of muddy ground, where two posts had been erected. A thin rope was suspended between them from which dangled a small iron ring, invisible at this distance. ‘You have two chances, remember.’

Robert returned the knight’s goading grin. ‘That would be one less than you then, Sir Humphrey.’

Humphrey, who failed to lance the ring on his two tries, narrowed his eyes at the provocation as a few of the other knights laughed.

Edward, standing with their squires, clapped Robert on the back as he dug his foot into the stirrup. ‘Show these southerners what Scots are made of, brother,’ he murmured.

Robert swung up into the saddle and grasped the reins as Nes came forward to tighten the girth. The horse, a handsome roan charger called Hunter, was one of the swiftest, most responsive animals Robert had ever owned, a true joy to ride. But that good temperament had cost him, for horses of Hunter’s breeding did not come cheap and the sixty marcs he’d handed to the trader had seemed a huge sum. Convincing himself of the necessity of a suitable horse that would carry him into war in France, he had ignored his brother’s intimations that it was more to do with the fact that the sturdy-legged coursers and gentle palfreys they had brought from their grandfather’s stables had seemed lowly in comparison to the powerful French and Spanish-bred destriers of the English knights. Afterwards, Robert had dug deeper into his purse to buy new clothes for himself and his brother, more in accordance with the London fashion. Soon after the spring parliament, he had been granted his first audience by the king, who had welcomed his pledge to serve him in war, as his father and grandfather before him. Following this, Robert found himself invited to many subsequent royal councils and feasts. Moving within the higher circles of the king’s court, the effort to blend in with the other barons had seemed fitting.

Nes passed Robert his lance, which he took in his gloved hand. The soft leather was still smooth from lack of wear and he had to grip all the harder to keep the shaft in place.

‘Wait, Sir Robert!’ came a girlish voice from the crowd.

Robert looked round to see Princess Elizabeth, whom he’d heard affectionately referred to as Bess, wielding a fistful of white silk. It looked as though it had once been part of a veil. As he watched, the young princess stuffed the rumpled cloth into Helena’s hand with a furtive grin. Helena’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red and she shot the princess a furious glance, but stepped reluctantly out of the crowd. Robert felt his chest tighten as she held up the cloth and met his gaze. The merlin on her hand raised its wings in expectation of flight as Robert bent down to take the favour and Bess clapped laughingly. His fingers brushed against Helena’s when he grasped the silk and he wished to God he wasn’t wearing the gloves. She moved quickly back into the crowd, her head bowed, while he wrapped the fluttering length of silk around his lance shaft, ignoring the glare he knew Guy de Beauchamp was giving him. Steadying himself, Robert turned towards the distant posts and kicked hard at Hunter’s sides.

The servants in the orchard stopped sweeping to watch as Robert plunged down the field, lance raised into the canter, before being levelled for the gallop. Mud sprayed, splattering his new boots. The iron ring came up quickly, his focus narrowing on it. Robert’s fingers tightened around the shaft, the pad of his glove slipping against the wood as he rushed towards the posts, the silk favour billowing ahead of him. His mind filled with the image of Helena, arm raised, her sleeve slipping down to reveal more skin. She flashed through his thoughts only briefly, but it was enough to distract him. He lunged, a second too early. The tip of the lance grazed the iron circle, but didn’t enter it. Leaving the small ring swinging madly in his wake, Robert shot on past the posts, cursing. Slowing Hunter, he turned in a wide circle back down the mud-churned field towards the company.