Just then a small hand touched my arm and I jumped like a startled rabbit, jerking the poniard half out of its scabbard. Ruth was at my side, and she was proffering a steaming wooden bowl. ‘Don’t do that,’ I said crossly, ‘don’t sneak up on people. I could easily have killed you.’
She frowned. ‘I am sorry for frightening you like that,’ she said.
‘You did not frighten me,’ I said, still annoyed. ‘I was merely regarding the enemy and considering our best stratagems for tomorrow.’ I was being pompous and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
She said nothing, but handed me the bowl of fish stew, gesturing that I should eat. I sank down on to the floor of the parapet, back against the thick wooden wall and began to spoon the mixture into my mouth. She crouched down beside me, watching. The food was absolutely delicious, and I was surprised that somebody had bothered to make a proper hot meal in these difficult circumstances. I flashed a smile at her, and she smiled back. Friends again.
‘I never thanked you for escorting us here,’ she said. Her brown eyes above her veil filled with warmth and gratitude. ‘I was so scared and you were so brave, like a hero, like Jonathan fighting the Philistines…’
I seemed to be losing my appetite as I stared into those deep twin pools. Gruffly, I said: ‘I’m no Jonathan, I was merely doing my duty…’ I couldn’t think of anything more to say, there was a lump in my throat and my cheeks were glowing. I was secretly very glad that she thought me a hero. But I hoped she could not see my blushes in the darkness.
‘Will you stay and protect us against…’ she made a sideways jerk of her head, indicating the bailey of the castle, ‘… them?’ I put down the nearly empty bowl and took her hand. ‘My lady,’ I said awkwardly, too loud for the quiet of the night, ‘I shall protect you from these evil men, even at cost of my own life. They shall never harm you.’ Ruth lifted her free hand to my cheek and softly stroked the downy skin. ‘Thank you, Alan,’ she said.
I shudder now, looking back after more than forty years, to hear my young self making such rash promises. And I can scarcely bear to remember what happened afterwards — but recall it I shall, as I swore to do so. And perhaps by remembering the past unflinchingly, I shall be granted forgiveness by Our Lord for my sins in those dark days.
I followed Ruth down the spiral staircase in the corner of the Tower, watching with great interest the narrow waist and the way she swayed her hips as she walked, and on the ground floor, we came across a gathering of all the Jewish men of fighting age. They did not look a very formidable force. There were about forty of them, ranging in years from fourteen to fifty, mostly dark or grey haired and with a beaten, hangdog look. They looked ashamed, frightened; no one man wanting to meet another’s eye. Ruth slipped away and I watched as Robin, confidence personified, strode into the centre of the square space and stood on an old wooden box so that everyone could see him. He had an unloaded crossbow held casually over his shoulder, and began, as he had put it, ‘to rally the troops’.
‘My friends, be quiet and listen to me for a moment,’ he said loudly. ‘Give me your ears, my friends, and I will give you the good news, the excellent news about our situation.’ The Jews looked at him curiously, as if they had another madman in their midst. ‘We are fortunate,’ Robin began again, even more loudly, and there was a stirring and muttering in the crowd. ‘I say, we are fortunate because we are here — ’
One man stepped out from the loose circle that had formed around Robin; a big, sturdy man in a dark blue robe with a magnificent bushy red beard. His angry voice cut straight across Robin’s speech. ‘Fortunate, how? Fortunate to be hunted like wild pigs through our own city? Fortunate to be driven from our homes, our friends and family butchered, our silver stolen?’
‘You are fortunate that you are not dead,’ interrupted Robin coolly. ‘Would you not agree?’ He paused for a beat or two, but the red-haired man said nothing. ‘Fortunate that that pack of murderous lunatics’ — Robin flung out an arm and pointed to the door that led outside and down to the bailey — ‘did not tear you apart.’ There were growls of anger from the crowd. ‘But that aside,’ said Robin continuing calmly, ‘at this moment you are fortunate in other matters, too. Firstly, in this Tower; this is a stronghold designed to be held by a handful of warriors against a much bigger army. And we have those warriors. Before me I see men of courage; men who are willing to fight as hard as any knight and, if necessary, to die, in defence of their families, in defence of their pride, and their honour as men.’ I saw a few of the younger Jews nodding.
‘I see men of courage before me, men ready for battle, and in that we are most fortunate,’ Robin went on. ‘With good men such as you, we can hold this Tower until the heavens fall. We have food, we have water and ale, and we have brave men. So, I say, we are fortunate.’ I saw then that the mood had changed subtly; it was something that I had noticed before when Robin spoke. He could command men’s feelings; he had a trick of making them feel that they were better than they truly were. The Jews were standing more erect now, shoulders more square, stomachs pulled in, heads high. There saw themselves as warriors, not sheep to be driven by a hate-filled mob, but hard fighters, men of blood and iron.
‘The second piece of good fortune is that we have these,’ said Robin, lifting the crossbow off his shoulder and holding it up in the air. ‘We have more than three dozen of these weapons, and enough quarrels to send a thousand souls to Hell.’ He took the crossbow and cradled it in his arms. ‘With this weapon, and the others we have here, we can easily hold fast, until this evil sickness which has seized the townspeople releases them. We can keep the Devil at bay until they return to their senses or until help comes. So I say again that we are fortunate. We have the men, we have the weapons, and we have the guts to use them. God smiles on us. We… are… fortunate.’
The crowd of Jews actually cheered him. It was an astonishing turnaround: a few moments ago they had been a sullen, frightened herd of persecuted sheep, now they saw themselves as a band of noble warriors ready to do or die.
‘Now listen closely to me, my friends,’ said Robin. ‘These weapons are very simple to use, but quite deadly.’ As I watched him demonstrate how to load the crossbow, I caught his eye and he shot me a surreptitious grin and a wink.
It was indeed a simple weapon to use. The stiff crossbow cord is pulled back using the power of the whole of a man’s body. You put your right foot in the stirrup at the end of the machine and haul back the cord with both hands while extending the right leg, until the cord is locked into place with a pair of iron teeth near the stock. Then you place a quarrel in the groove on the top of the weapon, put the weapon to your shoulder, aim and pull up the trigger, or tickle as it is known, below the stock. The iron teeth are pulled down by the tickle, releasing the bow cord, which springs forward and shoots the quarrel away at man-killing speed. It was quite accurate at close range, and packed enough power to penetrate chainmail at fifty paces.
‘Take off your hood, Alan, and hold it out to the side,’ Robin suddenly addressed me as I lounged against a stack of boxes by the wall, trying to look confident — and I felt my heart sink. I knew what he was in his mind. I sighed but, loyal as ever, I took my headgear off and held it out as far as possible from my body, close to the rough wooden planks of the wall.