Sir Aubrey’s remaining crossbowmen, reinforced with a score of my best men-at-arms, stood over the patched section of the wall. I was fairly sure that the enemy’s attack, spawned out of rage at our insolent violation of their camp, would come directly at us and surge up against the front gate. But in case I was wrong, I posted the rest of the men at regular intervals along the east and west walls and in the top storey of the mill at the south side of the castle to ward against an attack across the river – and to two handpicked men, heavily muscled but not especially bright, I allocated a very special duty, and gave their command into my little squire Thomas’s thirteen-year-old hands.
As I was directing the dispositions of the castle – Sir Aubrey had agreed to a joint command as I had the greater number of living men-at-arms – my squire came to me and in his quiet, steady way, said: ‘Sir Alan, I think I have found something that will be of interest to you.’ And he stood there waiting for my attention.
I was extremely busy, overseeing the distribution of the castle’s remaining bundles of light javelins to the men on the walls, and it had been on the tip of my tongue to rebuke him, but one glance at his solemn face and I bit back my retort. He led me to a storeroom by the river on the southern side of the castle and wordlessly indicated a tun, a very large wooden barrel that stood at the rear of the space. I walked over and examined it closely, detecting a familiar scent even through the thick oak staves.
‘Is it full?’ I asked my squire.
‘To the brim, sir,’ he replied.
I looked into his deep brown eyes and grinned. ‘Well done, Thomas, very well done. I will give you two men and you shall prepare it for us. Yes?’
Thomas nodded gravely. And I left him in the store house, shouting for carpenter’s tools, kitchen implements and firewood, and ordering two big Locksley men-at-arms around, a little shrilly in his unbroken voice, but with the ease of a born captain.
I made my rounds of three sides of the stone perimeter – ignoring the south wall: trying to put heart into the men for the coming contest. And I was pleased that I could detect little fear among the men-at-arms and bowmen on that sunny afternoon. The archers strung their tall yew bows and examined their shafts individually for tiny flaws, and tightened their bracers, the leather sleeves that protected the soft skin on the inside of the left forearm from the lash of the bowstring. The men-at-arms sharpened their spearheads and swords and adjusted the straps on their shields. I was not alone in making my rounds: the castle’s only priest accompanied me as I moved along the walkway and, as I made manly, warlike comments to the men and trotted out age-old jokes, the priest intoned words of prayer over their weapons, blessing the soldiers and assuring them that God was with them this day, and would humble the French King for breaking the sacred truce between himself and our divinely ordained lord King Richard.
As we moved along the narrow walkway behind the stone wall, stopping at each little knot of men, I kept shooting glances at the priest. I could not help myself – the trepidation I felt at the onset of such a one-sided battle was far outweighed by my curiosity about this man. His name was Jean de Puy; he was in his middle forties, with a kindly well-worn face and thinning light brown hair cut in a tonsure, and he spoke good, educated French and better Latin when he uttered the sacred words of prayer for the men. He seemed to be a genuinely good and holy man – not venal and corrupt, or lazy and cynical, as some small-town priests so easily become. At one point, standing with a group of our men-at-arms on the eastern rampart, I completely lost myself in contemplation of him, pondering the kind of man he must have been in his youth. I had to be jerked back to reality by a crude jest from one of the men, a huge, powerful warrior called Sam. I returned the jest with an even cruder suggestion concerning his mother and a selection of farmyard animals, then walked down the steps back into the courtyard, side by side with Father Jean. At the bottom of the steps, the priest turned and looked me square in the face.
‘My son, your countenance seems to me to have a very familiar aspect. May I make so bold as to ask, have we met before?’
‘No, Father,’ I said. ‘We have not met before this day. But I heard much about you from an old priest in Lisieux who told me that twenty years ago you used to be a chorister at the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris – as my father was. Indeed, you are the true reason I am here in Verneuil.’
Chapter Three
I would have spoken further with Father Jean but I was interrupted by a fanfare of trumpets. ‘I must go, Father, but I would speak with you again when I have more leisure.’