And then there was Reuben. Reuben was dueling with a mail-clad man-at-arms, no mere angry townsman with a rusty rake but a professional soldier. Reuben’s slim, girlish blade was everywhere, feinting high and cutting at his ankles, lunging for the eyes and then suddenly turning the blow into a sweep at the neck. He was masterful; I should have gone to his aid but it was clear that he did not need my help. The soldier had no chance, his clumsy swings with his heavy, straight-edged sword came nowhere near Reuben’s body. And then, in a flash, it was over: Reuben took two small steps forward, knocked the man’s weapon out of the way with a steely snap of his wrist and almost delicately passed his curved sword through his throat. The man dropped to one knee, white hands clasped at his neck, his life pissing away in great, spurting red arcs.
The attack was over, too. I could see defeated men — townsmen and men-at-arms — streaming back into the bailey, and looking over the parapet I saw the mounds of dead — scores and scores, some sprouting black quarrels like hedge pigs — and a host of wounded who were unable to walk. Many had broken legs from falling from the ladders. The Jews were unmerciful and Robin did not try to stop them. They loaded crossbows, leant out over the parapet and shot bolt after bolt into the injured men below. And then they hurled the enemy dead, and the wounded too, over the parapet to crash and roll down the grassy slope of the mound twenty feet below.
We had taken casualties as well. Apart from my Stopper, who was being tended to by his comrades, we had two dead men killed by thrown spears, one with a bad arrow wound and several men slashed by the swords of our attackers as they pushed the ladders away from the wall. But, all things considered, the damage done to us was slight; and we had held them off once again.
As the sun set on our battlefield, the mood in the Tower was fiercely defiant. The men had been attacked twice and had fought off their enemies with great courage. As always for me after battle, I felt a great wash of sadness, and was almost close to tears. And when the excitement was over, and my heart returned to its normal state, I felt a great weight on my soul; a sorrow for all those Christians who would never see another sunrise. I fell to my knees on that rooftop and prayed to Almighty God to receive the souls of the slain into His Grace, and to forgive them for their sins. I also offered up a small prayer of thanks for keeping me safe through the blood and carnage of that day. Then I began to clean and oil my weapons. I knew I would need them again before long.
Chapter Five
We kept watch that night, by companies — two companies on watch, one resting — but they did not come again. The enemy picket lines around the Tower remained; we could glimpse bodies moving about in the light of small campfires, but there was no attack. Instead, in the centre of the bailey courtyard, they built a great bonfire and by means of a tripod, they suspended a great cauldron over the blaze and filled it with river water. It took several hours for the water in the huge iron bowl to come to the boil, but by the time it was merrily bubbling away, a crowd had formed in the darkness around the fire and the great cooking pot. I had assumed that the Christians were making some great pottage to feed the hundreds that had gathered to watch the Jews in the Tower being murdered, but I was wrong. Horribly wrong.
In the crowd around the cauldron I saw two men in the dark vestments of priests and the tall figure of Sir Richard Malbete; one of the priests seemed to be holding a service of some sort, he was chanting psalms and leading the crowd in the recitation of prayers; then there was a ripple from the crowd and a large oddly shaped parcel was ejected from the mass and plumped down on the ground beside the bonfire. Then it moved and I saw that it was a girl, thin, terrified, badly beaten and tightly bound.
Someone gave a sharp cry of pain beside me on the parapet and I turned to see a portly Jew in a good quality robe, mouth hanging open in anguish, pointing out at the bailey and the girl bound on the ground. He was soon surrounded by his fellows who comforted him and tried to pull him away from the battlements. ‘It’s his daughter,’ said a voice beside me and I turned to see Robin, looking grim, and leaning on his bow staff. ‘Whatever they do to her, it’s not going to be good for him to see it,’ he said. His voice was icy and flat.
A young man leaned out over the wall and shouted into the darkness below in the direction of the nearest picket fire. ‘Hey, Christian! Hey, you.’
No reply. So the man leaned out even further, his comrades holding his legs. ‘Hey Christian, talk to me.’
There was a short silence and then a voice shouted back from the darkness. ‘What do you want, you damned Jew? Stop making so much noise and let us sleep.’
‘What’s going on in there, in the castle, they’ve got Mordecai the silversmith’s daughter; what are they going to do with her? Tell me, Christian, for the love of God, tell me. She is only ten years old, and has never hurt a soul.’
There was a muttered conference in the darkness below. Then there was raucous laughter and a new voice spoke. ‘She’s a dirty Jew and they are going to thoroughly wash her, you pig. They are going to baptise her, and send her soul to Jesus, who will no doubt take one look and send her to Hell where she belongs!’ There was more laughter, not a pleasant sound, a ragged cackling like the mirth of devils.
Robin and I stared over at the far side of the bailey, where the religious service seemed to be coming to an end. ‘How far would you say that distance was, Alan,’ Robin murmured to me, ‘here to the cauldron, two hundred and twenty-five yards?’ he might have been asking a question about the weather for all the emotion in his voice.
‘Nearer to two thirty, I’d say,’ I replied, trying to emulate his lack of concern. But then I was held in rapt horror by the unfolding scene before me.
As the two men-at-arms picked up the bound girl, her head fell back and I caught a flash of her white, terrified face as her dark hair tumbled behind her. The men-at-arms lifted her high, the priest made the sign of the cross, there were scattered shouts from the crowd — and with a heave they plunged her into the boiling water. I can hear her blood-curdling scream of utter torment even now after more than forty years. It shriveled my soul, my ball sack contracted violently and every muscle in my body became taught as iron. But beside me Robin was moving. As the awful howls of that scalded girl echoed round the Tower like a Banshee riding the wind, Robin had pulled an arrow from his bag, nocked it to the bow and loosed in one swift fluid movement. The arrow flew in a shallow arc, the white ash wood flashing as it passed through pools of light in the darkness and smacked home right on target into the chest of the unfortunate girl. The screaming ended as abruptly as if her head had been cut off with an axe. It was a staggering bowshot, impossibly accurate at that distance and in that light, miraculous, and yet Robin had made it. The figures around the cauldron were frozen in shock; one minute they had been watching a Jewish girl scream her lungs out in excruciating agony, the next she was a corpse floating in the bubbling water, bobbing in the roil like a loose white dumpling in a pan of stew.
Robin loosed again, and again his shot was almost supernatural. The arrow thumped home into the belly of the priest who had conducted the service; his horrified expression as a white shaft appeared in his fat stomach was truly comical, but as he stared down at his midriff in disbelief, the crowd realised the danger and split into fragments, finding cover where they could. There was no sign of Richard Malbete. Once again, at the first signs of trouble he had disappeared.