We made our camp in a store room on the second floor, Ruth wrapped in my warm green cloak, Reuben sitting with his head in his hands, weeping quietly. Robin and I stood guard, I don’t know why, as there was nobody in the Tower who might attack us, and if the Christians who surrounded us had known what was happening inside, they could have taken the Tower any time they cared to. But perhaps we were guarding against more than human foes. The Devil stalked the Tower that night, I am sure of it. The wailing cries from that stinking hall of blood below continued sporadically throughout the night. And then finally there was silence.
Long past midnight a great storm brewed up, and lightning lashed the sky while the great crash of thunder overhead was nearly deafening. The rain fell like a curtain of spears descending from Heaven. I knew then that this was the judgment of God. He was angry that his Christian servants had caused so many Jews to die, and die so horribly. I shivered in an old blanket, being dripped on from holes in the roof, and watched the vengeful wrath of the Almighty through a narrow window slit.
We fired the Tower in the morning light, setting sparks to tinder and wood shavings in five different places to make a funeral pyre for the Jewish dead, and rode out of the battered iron-bound gate under a billow of smoke and grubby once-white chemise tied to a spear. Robin, myself, Reuben and Ruth, accompanied by a very young Jewish couple with a baby we had found hiding in the pantry. I was glad to leave that place of blood and horror, even though we were riding out to surrender to our enemies. I was the last to pass through the iron gate and, as I gave a final glance back upon that scene of hideous carnage, I saw through the gathering smoke, Josce sitting slumped on a stool in a dark corner, his kind, doleful eyes seemingly fixed on mine. I checked Ghost and was about to call to Robin to wait, when I saw that the old man’s stillness was unnatural and his beard and the whole front of his robe was drenched in black blood. I stared into his unseeing Jewish eyes for just a moment, and then turned back and guided Ghost down the steep wooden steps towards my fellow Christians.
Our appearance caused the alarm to be sounded in the bailey and men-at-arms came running as we thudded quickly over the earthen causeway and down into the courtyard, Robin led our pathetic group with his chin lifted and, with his light brown hair, silver eyes and fine-wrought hauberk, he looked the very opposite of a besieged and beaten Jew, which was I expect his intention. I was at the rear of our group, watching the gathering troops and trying to show no fear. We were all armed, in direct contravention of Sir John’s orders, but Robin had told us that, if things got ugly, were all were to cut and run for the open gate of the bailey that led out towards the bridge over the Fosse, and beyond to Walmgate. And there was no way on this sinful earth that I was going to leave that Tower without my weapons. I was fully determined to fight and die, if necessary, to protect Ruth, who had still not spoken a word since her near-death last night at the hands of her father. I could not even look at Reuben.
‘I am the Earl of Locksley, and I wish to speak to your commander, Sir John Marshal,’ said Robin in his most haughty voice to the awed circle of men-at-arms on foot that had gathered around us in the centre of the bailey. The soldiery appeared to be unsure of what to do. Behind us the Tower was now visibly burning: flames licking greedily at the shattered wooden defences; black smoke pouring upwards to the heavens. We represented no serious threat to the men-at-arms, and we should surely be taken prisoner at the least, but Robin’s demeanour and noble bearing kept them at a respectful distance. Beyond the soldiers I could see townsmen, in russet tunics and hoods, appearing from the buildings around the perimeter of the bailey, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and then my heart sank. There was no sign of Sir John Marshal, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, charged with keeping the King’s peace in this county, but another knightly figure, tall and with a shock of white hair in the centre of his forehead, could be seen mounting a horse, drawing a sword and trotting over towards the knot of men around us. The townsmen followed him in growing numbers, swarming out from their holes like the vicious latrine rats they truly were.
Sir Richard Malbete wasted no time: ‘What are you waiting for?’ he shouted to the men-at-arms while still twenty paces away. ‘Seize the Jews!’
A man-at-arms tentatively put out a hand to take hold of Robin’s bridle, but my master pulled his horse’s head away. ‘Someone in the crowd shouted: ‘Kill the Jews!’ and the cry was taken up by many voices. And suddenly we were in the midst of a full-blown battle.
‘Make for the gate!’ yelled Robin, hauling out his sword and cutting savagely at the man-at-arms who was still trying to grab his horse’s reins. A man clutched at my leg and I shook the limb free and booted him in the face. I had my blades out by now as well; poniard in my left hand, sword in my right, tied reins over the pommel of my saddle. I slapped the flat of my blade on the rump of Ruth’s horse, it reared and dislodged a man-at-arms who was grappling around Ruth’s waist and trying to pull her down. The horses started forward, mercifully toward the gate, and I plunged forward after her, cracking my sword into the man’s mail-clad arm as Ghost shouldered past. There were soldiers running at me, left and right, and I hacked and kicked, and slashed at faces and limbs until momentarily I had a circle of space around me; but there were too many men-at-arms rushing in for that to last. A soldier unwisely came at me from behind. I gave Ghost the battle signal I had so patiently taught him and he lashed out behind him with both back hooves; with a terrific crack of bone the man went flying, his chest caved in. I cut down another man with sword and sank my poniard into another’s back, the fine strong Spanish steel easily punching through the links on his hauberk, as it had been designed to do. There was no sign of the Jewish couple and their baby, the only evidence that they had once lived was a knot of men-at-arms stabbing down again and again with their swords into a half-glimpsed mound of wriggling blood-soaked cloth. I looked away. Reuben, still horsed, was laying about him with his deadly scimitar, men staggering back from his blows with terrible gashes to face and head. Robin had already cut his way clear of the melee. He was halfway to the gate and I saw him look back. We had agreed that, if these circumstances arose, it was every man for himself, but he reined in, looking at Reuben who was still surrounded by soldiers and a group of townsmen flailing at him with scythes and rakes, screaming for his Jewish blood. Then Robin looked to his left, and I, too, saw what he was seeing. My lovely friend Ruth was being dragged from her horse by many grasping hands. I exchanged sword cuts with a man-at-arms who had run up to me and sent him tumbling away then looked back at Robin. He was nearer to Ruth than to Reuben, both of whom now desperately needed his help but — and I will remember these few moments for the rest of my life — he pulled hard at his reins, and wheeling his horse, he lifted his sword and charged back into the fray… to Reuben’s rescue. I gave a great shout of rage, batted a townsman out of my way and put spurs to Ghost, forcing a way through the crush towards Ruth, chopping desperately about me as I urged my mount forward. But Ruth had disappeared into the press of the mob. I saw hands raised and the glint of steel in them and imagined I heard the dreadful chopping noise as the blades sliced into her sweet flesh.