Love Everlasting (32 page)

“We cannot use the cold room, lest the stream
that cools it is befouled by the bodies,” Julianna protested.
“Before the siege is over, we may need to drink that water.”

“Then, let us pray that Michael has found
Lord Royce,” the priest said, heading for the chapel to do just
that. “And pray that Royce comes to relieve us before many more
souls perish from hunger or wounds or sickness.”

“Don’t worry about the children, my lady,”
Baldwin said to Julianna later. “I’ll see to them. I’ll keep Linnet
busy with them, too, which is the best thing for her just now. I
have delegated some of the older boys and girls to help care for
the younger ones. You and Lady Alice may tend to the wounded
without worrying over the children. Leave them to me.”

Julianna trusted Baldwin. Even so, she did
check on the children from time to time, fearing that the
confinement necessary for their protection would lead to
misbehavior. She discovered that they were remarkably well behaved
under Baldwin’s firm supervision. Even Alice’s wild older son sat
quietly to listen to Baldwin’s tale of a war waged during his
youth.

Baldwin was kind to Linnet, too. Several
times in the next few days Julianna saw him with an arm across
Linnet’s shoulders and Linnet resting her head against his chest
while she wept. Baldwin did not seem to mind Linnet’s homely face
or her reddened and swollen eyes. Seeing his tenderness toward the
grieving young woman, Julianna found her heart lightening until she
was able to smile.

* * * * *

The besiegers had brought up a new machine.
Unable to break through the double, iron-reinforced main gate with
stones hurled from the mangonel, they cut down a large tree and
proceeded to turn it into a battering ram by suspending it on ropes
from a wooden frame. The frame was covered with animal skins that
afforded protection to the men who were to work the ram.

“Those are the skins of Wortham cattle, the
beasts the villagers didn’t have time to herd into the bailey,”
William exclaimed in disgust. “We can smell the meat roasting on
their spits, while we starve. Damn them all to perdition!”

“How do they imagine they can approach the
gate?” Julianna asked, staring down at the moat that, thanks to the
recent rains, was nearly overflowing its banks.

“They will sacrifice Wortham Forest. Royce’s
trees mean nothing to them. Do you see there?” William pointed to a
group of men who were dragging toward the moat what looked like a
long, narrow raft. “Those are trees from the forest, cut down and
split into logs, then bound together to make a movable bridge. They
have plenty of rocks to support it. They’ve saved every rock and
stone they’ve stumbled over since they first set up their camp.
They’ll dump the rocks into the moat to make a rough road, then run
the bridge across, position the battering ram on top, and use the
ram to break down the gates. I am surprised they haven’t tried it
before this.”

“Will they succeed?” Julianna asked from a
throat suddenly gone dry with apprehension.

“In time, they will,” William answered. “Not
much time, either. The gates have been weakened by all the stones
hurled against them. As soon as Kenric’s people mount a direct
assault on the gates, I want everyone who’s not a fighting man
moved into the keep. When I give the order, you are to bar the keep
door and not open it for any reason.”

“Except to let you and your men inside,”
Julianna corrected him.

“No,” William declared stoutly. “Not even for
us. Now, don’t argue with me, and do not, under any circumstances,
tell Alice what I plan. Royce has put me in charge of the castle
defenses, so in this you must obey me, my lady.”

Julianna saw his pleasant features hardened
by valiant courage and by his concern for all the people inside the
castle walls, whose welfare was entrusted to him. And it occurred
to her, not for the first time, that William’s mild manners
disguised a remarkably brave man. So she offered the thought that
came to her mind in a flash of hope.

“Why are they are in such a great hurry?” she
asked. “They must know that all they have to do is wait, and
eventually we will be forced to surrender or die.”

“We will never surrender,” William stated
firmly. “You and I agreed to that on the first day of the
siege.”

“True, but they don’t know what we agreed.
They have no reason to believe we won’t surrender. Is it possible
that they fear we will be relieved before they can starve us
out?”

“Let us hope,” William said, a faint smile
curving his mouth, “that Kenric and his fellow conspirators are
quaking in their boots with fear over exactly that
possibility.”

As Royce and his company drew nearer to
Wortham the outriders who were patrolling in advance of their route
captured four men. They bound their prisoners and brought them into
that evening’s camp, where they handed them over to Cadwallon.
Royce joined the little group, keeping his cloak wrapped around
himself so he was unlikely to be recognized.

As he expected, Cadwallon was most
enthusiastic in questioning the captives and it was soon learned
that they were assigned to report back to the besiegers on any
group of warriors who approached Wortham with the apparent
intention of lifting the siege.

“The road from the south and and the one from
the west are both watched day and night,” one of the captives
revealed after Cadwallon, with a fiendish grin, threatened to cut
his throat. “My lords Othmar and Edmund, along with Sir Kenric,
agree that those are the directions to expect relief to come from,
since Lord Royce is at Northampton.”

“What now, my lord?” asked Cadwallon, turning
to Royce with a wink that the prisoner could not see. “Shall I kill
him, or not?”

“He may yet prove useful,” Royce said,
falling in with Cadwallon’s bloodthirsty pretense. “Let him live,
for now. “Keep all of the prisoners under close guard, and keep
them separated, so they can’t talk to each other.”

Based on what he had just learned, Royce
decided that the best way to approach Wortham was through the
concealing forest. They set out early the next morning, keeping
well away from the road. Since Royce was thoroughly familiar with
his own lands he quickly noticed how many trees had been cut down.
There were wide areas where chopped-off branches lay strewn across
the forest floor and where all the fresh green growth of springtime
was trampled and crushed. In those denuded places the birds that
usually nested in the trees were missing and no cheerful songs
heralded news of insects or juicy worms found in the fields where
crops ought to be sprouting. Nor did Royce see any sign of deer or
rabbits or any other animals. He guessed they had been eaten by the
besiegers, or else frightened away to the undisturbed areas.

Against his son, Arden’s, cautionary advice,
Royce rode ahead of his men, to the very edge of the forest to see
for himself what damage had been wrought upon castle and village.
After signalling their own men to stay out of sight Arden, Braedon,
and Cadwallon joined him, with Michael following close behind. No
alarm was given. No one noticed them, for the besieging forces were
busy.

Wortham Village was almost completely
destroyed. Once a delightful place of well maintained cottages with
thatched roofs and individual gardens, in the previous springtime
the village had shown at its very best as the site of a fair held
in conjunction with a great tournament at the castle. Now those
same cottages were burned to the ground, presumably to eliminate
any hope of shelter for the villagers or for men who came to
relieve the siege. Only a few of the most sturdy walls remained
standing.

The farmland surrounding the village was
ruined. No trace remained of any spring planting. Tents for the
besiegers and pens for their horses covered most of the fields, and
the river beyond the encampment ran muddy and befouled with
waste.

As for the castle, Royce muttered an outraged
oath when he saw the damage caused to the south wall by the
mangonel, which continued to hammer away at the wall as he stared
at it. A narrow aperture had been blasted through the stone. It was
as yet too small to admit anyone larger than a young child, and the
opening led only to the outer bailey.

A second mangonel sat unused at one side of
the road that led to the main gates. The castle drawbridge had been
demolished. The main gates, made of oak planks a foot thick and
reinforced with iron straps and heavy iron hinges, had been
battered until the hinges were pulled loose from the wood and the
gates gave way under the force of the assault.

Royce knew it wouldn’t take long to force the
inner gatehouse, which boasted a single strong gate, and from there
the invaders would pour into the inner bailey. They had only paused
in their onslaught to allow their dead, wounded, and injured to be
carried away, so they’d have more space to accommodate those men
who were fit to fight.

From the number of men being dragged or
assisted across the makeshift movable bridge thrown over the moat,
it was clear to Royce that the defenders had made good use of the
murder holes above the main gates. Once the attackers had advanced
as far as the inside of the gatehouse they no longer enjoyed the
benefit of the hides that covered the framework of the battering
ram. Without that protection they were open to danger from well
aimed arrows, heavy stones, or boiling water or oil.

“We don’t have much time,” Cadwallon said. He
sat his horse at Royce’s left side, and the usually pleasant lines
of his face showed hard in the golden light of early evening. “They
won’t stop at nightfall, not when they are so close to victory.
They’ll soon have the inner gate smashed to splinters.”

“True,” Royce agreed. Then, taking heart from
the other observations he had made, he went on, “They are
overconfident. For the moment at least, they are entirely concerned
with getting into the castle. I see no guards posted to repulse an
attack, which tells me that no one has yet missed the men-at-arms
we captured. They probably have no idea that we are so close.

“Arden, Braedon,” he said to his son and
son-in-law, “take your men west of the village. Cadwallon, lead
your men south and destroy that cursed mangonel. All of you are
experienced in battle and you are familiar with the land around
here. You know where best to conceal your men and which striking
angle will offer the greatest advantage, so I leave the exact
manner of your attacks to you.

“I will strike directly at the castle gates,”
he told his companions. “You have one hour to make your
dispositions. Attack when you hear the trumpet I’ve entrusted to
Brian. We will meet again in the great hall.

“Michael, now is the time to use the
hourglass I told you to bring along.”

From his saddlebag Michael produced the
hourglass, which he turned over to start the sand running. Royce
watched the others move away through the trees to rejoin their
waiting men. As soon as Cadwallon was gone Michael rode up to sit
next to him, holding the glass in a steady hand.

As always, waiting for the battle to begin
was the most difficult part of warfare. Royce tried to be patient,
knowing he dared not reveal his position until the divisions of his
hastily formed army of relief were all in place. He trusted his
companions implicitly, and he knew the men they commanded were well
trained and eager for the fray. But as the soft, early evening
breeze carried to his ears the sounds of continued fighting in the
outer bailey, he found it was more and more difficult to resist the
urge to action.

The sand in Michael’s hourglass moved with
incredible slowness. And with each grain of sand that sifted into
the lower bulb of the glass Julianna was in greater danger. Bound
by his own commands, Royce could only wait and pray that she’d stay
safe in the keep until he reached her.

Inside Wortham Castle, Julianna was beset by
ever increasing difficulties. The children were hungry, and so
restless that even Baldwin was having trouble keeping them in
order. Alice was so weak that she had fainted that morning because,
according to Linnet, she had been giving most of her daily ration
of food to her children. When Julianna scolded her, saying she
needed to keep up her strength in order to protect the young ones,
Alice burst into tears and would not be comforted.

Feeling the need of a bit of comfort herself,
not to mention a few moments of quiet and fresh air, Julianna
disobeyed William’s order to remain inside the keep.

“Bolt the door after me,” she told Etta as
she sallied forth to the inner bailey. “Do not open it again, not
even if you hear my voice, not until I give this signal, so you’ll
know it’s not a trick.” She knocked twice, paused, then knocked
quickly three times. When her maidservant nodded her understanding
of the signal, Julianna headed for the battlements.

She knew the gates would soon be forced, but
in the meantime she intended to be at the best vantage point to see
exactly what was happening. Hurrying across the crowded inner
bailey, she reached the steps that led to the highest point of the
castle wall and started up them, certain she’d find William up
there. The steps seemed steeper and more tiring to climb than
they’d ever been. She knew why that was. Like Alice, she had been
giving a large portion of her food to the children. She was weak
and gasping by the time she arrived on the walkway around the
walls. There William confronted her.

“Julianna, you are a fool to venture up
here!” He glared at her in frustrated annoyance. They had long ago
ceased to use titles or polite, formal language with each other.
After weeks of siege they were more than friends, more than lady of
the castle and seneschal; they had become something akin to
comrades in arms and neither of them felt the need to mince
words.