Stronghold

As Henri attempted to move his patient, whose gasps quickly became shrill bleats of agony, onto the bier, the doctor turned back to the priest.

'I thought God's role was to love us?'

'No,' Benan said solemnly. 'It's our role to love Him. By action as well as word. That's why we all will die in this place.'

'I can see why the earl had you flogged.'

But Benan was lapsing back into unconsciousness. 'I'm glad he did,' he murmured. Zacharius moved away, to help Henri with their next patient. 'I'm glad he did, good doctor. It's… my only hope.'

The morning wore on and no immediate attack came.

The English watched in silence from the roof of the Constable's Tower. Ninety yards away, at the far end of the causeway, the dead stared back from the roof of the Gatehouse. They also stared from the curtain-wall which, now that it had been abandoned, had been inundated by them. They crowded along the top of it, all around the castle perimeter, and yet were eerily still. If the English had felt they were encircled before, they knew it for a fact now. The dead on the curtain-wall were actually within bowshot from the west side of the Constable's Tower, but as the archers had seen how futile their efforts had been before, none sought to waste an arrow now.

'What are they waiting for?' Navarre snapped. 'A bloody invitation?'

'I'd guess munitions for the scoop-thrower,' Garbofasse replied. 'They threw so much rubble at us before, they probably emptied their stocks. They'll have to scour for miles in every direction to find a similar quantity again.'

'At which point our problems really begin,' Gurt said.

There were mumbles of agreement. Men glanced nervously towards the western bluff. It was clear to all that the Constable's Tower could also be struck by the scoop-thrower. If this happened, the men on its roof would be distracted trying to shield themselves, while the dead would advance along the causeway unimpeded.

This was Ranulf's suspicion, and it appeared to be confirmed shortly before noon, when about fifty of the dead emerged from the Gatehouse in lumbering work-gangs, and commenced laying out planks, beams and bundles of rope. The English watched, their sweat-filled hair prickling. Soon there was a prolonged banging of hammers and a droning of handsaws. Under the guidance of a twisted, diminutive figure, streaked with blood and dirt, yet with a distinctive gleaming pate, the corpses had commenced the construction of a tall framework.

'Is that William d'Abbetot?' someone asked, incredulous.

Earl Corotocus remained tight-lipped, but was clearly seething. Others were less angry and more bewildered, more horrified.

'I don't know which is worse,' du Guesculin said. 'That they know how to do that, or that one of our own is showing them the way.'

They'd all come to dread this moment, when their own dead might be raised to face them, though so much horror had befallen them since Ranulf had first voiced concern about this that to many it was just another routine body-blow. More important to Ranulf was the object the dead were constructing. It was almost certainly a siege- tower.

'After the Gatehouse, they appear to have reasoned that forcing entry through the gate itself is too costly. This time they intend to come over the top,' he said.

'You credit them with too much intellect,' Navarre jeered. 'Most of their brains are running out of their ears. How can they reason anything?'

But as the day wore on, Ranulf's thesis appeared to be correct. Whatever power controlled the Welsh dead, it also thought for them, motivating them like great swarms of ants, as though they were all of a single, collective mind. The work-gangs, who were tirelessly strong, and who operated with the smooth efficiency of skilled carpenters, continued to build the siege-tower, which was soon sturdy and massive, and rose section upon section until it was seventy feet tall. At the same time, other work-gangs descended the western bluff, carrying wheels, which they'd clearly removed from carts and wagons, to make it mobile. Others drove a team of oxen, to add brute muscle to the assault. Still more corpses appeared through the Gatehouse carrying heavy iron plates between them. These had clearly been detached from the Gatehouse entrance and would now be hung as fire-proof shielding along the tower's front and sides.

'My lord,' Ranulf said, pushing his way through to Earl Corotocus. 'It only remains for them to restock the scoop-thrower, and we are in very serious trouble.'

'I agree,' the earl replied, deep in thought. 'Do you imagine they'll opt for another night assault?'

'I doubt they'll be ready in time for that. So if we're lucky, no.'

'Lucky?' someone exclaimed. 'Is it lucky to have to wait another night before we die and are embraced by that legion of hell-spawn?'

It was a serjeant of mercenaries who'd spoken. He'd already suffered badly through the iron hail. Crude, self-applied sutures were all that held his face together, though his left eyeball was pulped and distended from its broken socket; stinking black humor dripped freely down his left cheek.

Ranulf ignored him. 'My lord, I have a plan — but it can only be executed in darkness.'

Corotocus regarded him with interest. 'A raid perhaps?'

Ranulf nodded. 'If a small party of us can get out there and disable the scoop-thrower, it will buy us time… at least for a few days, until they bring the mangonels onto the western bluff and assault us with those.'

The rest of the men listened in stupefied silence. Someone finally said: 'Are you mad? Out there, where only the dead rule? It's certain oblivion!'

'It's our only hope,' Ranulf argued.

'And who would comprise this suicide party?' Navarre scoffed. 'We'd draw lots, I suppose?'

Ranulf shrugged. 'The rest of you may draw lots if you wish. However, I volunteer to go. In fact, I will lead it.'

'Do you have a death wish, Ranulf?' the earl wondered. 'First onto the Gatehouse drawbridge. Leader of the forlorn hope. Has your father's demise unhinged you?'

'What I have, my lord, is experience. Remember Bayonne?'

Corotocus recalled it well; his mouth crooked into a half-smile. Others recalled the incident at Bayonne too, though not so fondly. Several of the earl's knights preferred not to dwell on it at all, for it had flown in the face of everything chivalrous they had ever been taught. On that occasion they had been the besiegers rather than the besieged.

It was in the early days of the Gascon war and Bayonne Castle on the River Nive had been captured by French forces. Earl Corotocus led the English army that subsequently surrounded it. The following siege was a prolonged, tiresome affair, both sides suffering from hunger and foul weather. On regular occasions Abbot Julius, of the Sainte Martine monastery high in the foothills of the Pyrenees, had come graciously down and been allowed entry to the castle by the English, to sing psalms for the embattled French. However, the earl's spies soon informed him that Abbott Julius was a cousin of Count Girald, who was commanding the French force, and was passing intelligence about the English strength and disposition. Not only that, he was organising a local resistance movement on behalf of the besieged and offering gold to pirates if they would intercept English galleys, bringing much-needed supplies to the nearby port.

In response, Earl Corotocus despatched a small group of handpicked men, Ranulf and his father among them, who disguised themselves as pilgrims en route to Compostela, and trod the dusty mountain road to Sainte Martine on foot. Only after begging water and a bed for the night, and finally being admitted to the monastery, did they throw off their rags and cowls, to reveal mail, swords and daggers. The monastery was sacked and burned, its lay- brothers slain, its monks — including Abbott Julius — taken as captives of war. A short while later, Earl Corotocus brought these prisoners before the walls of Castle Bayonne, and stood them on ox-carts with nooses around their necks. One word from him, he shouted, and the carts would be hauled away and the brethren left dangling. Inside the castle, Abbot Julius's cousin, Count Girald, had had no option but to signal his surrender.

Though it was well known that Earl Corotocus waged war in the most cunning ways, he was widely reviled for this ignoble act. Complaints were made against him to King Edward even from some on the English side — especially from those paragons of courtly virtue, William Latimer and John of Brittany. King Edward replied that conflict was always a hellish affair, but on this occasion particularly so as it was a straight contest between he and Philip IV of France, one anointed monarch versus another. With the stakes so high, he would not be held