Ranulf snorted.
"How about you?" Gurt asked. "What do you owe him?"
"What don't we owe him?" Ranulf shook his head. "My family lost everything in the blood feud between Bohun of Hereford and Clare of Gloucester. That was quite an unpleasant affair. Hereford and Gloucester had never been easy neighbours. In fact, they fought over just about everything. But the real conflict broke out between them over the castle of Morlais. It was a bitter squabble, which turned repeatedly into open violence. Raid followed raid. There were brawls in taverns, brawls on the highway, kidnappings. My father was Hereford's vassal, so he played a full part. The king eventually had them all arrested — that was in 1292, and the charge was waging private war. The two earls were fined heavily and had land confiscated by the Crown. My father and selected other knights, who'd declared for their overlords, were disinherited. Overnight, we went from landed gentry to destitution. My mother was ill at the time and unable to stand the shock."
"I'm sorry," Gurt said.
"It happens. She had the sweating sickness and might've died anyway. The main thing is, with mother dead, my father became errant again. He took me out of squiredom and knighted me himself. Like you, we fought in the tournaments, but as privateers. We did moderately well — made enough to live. But later that year, at Clarendon, father's destrier was wounded in the thigh and lamed. Not only did we take nothing from the tournament, our earning potential was halved. Desperate, we travelled to Wayland Fair, where we put every penny we had into buying father a new horse. It was a fine specimen, and even at that hefty price we thought it was a bargain. Then, three days later, we were accosted in a tavern by one Philip de Courcy, nephew to the Bishop of Norwich. He said he recognised the horse. Claimed it was one he'd had stolen not three months earlier, and accused us of theft. Father was outraged, but also worried. We were landless knights, nobodies without protectors — and this was a capital offence. So we demanded trial by battle. We two, father said, would fight de Courcy and any three of his knights, either in pairs or all at the same time. We would prove our innocence before God. Perhaps realising that, with our lives at stake, we were very serious about this matter, de Courcy took the latter option. Even so, it was a one-sided affair. Up to that time, I imagine de Courcy had bullocked his way through life on the strength of his uncle's name. Two of his men were wounded and withdrew from the fight early, and then de Courcy was killed. It was my blow that struck him. With this very sword."
Ranulf lifted his longsword from the embrasure. Like most battle swords, it was functional rather than handsome. Its two-edged blade had been honed many times, but was still chipped and scarred. Its great cross-hilt was bound with leather.
"I cut through his aventail and severed his windpipe." Ranulf re-enacted the fatal swipe. " My blow, but father said that if there was any blame, he would take it." He relapsed into brooding silence.
"There was blame attached?" Gurt eventually asked.
"Of course, even though we had many witnesses. The contest was fought on an open meadow outside the town, with the reeve's full permission. But the bishop, who also happened to be sheriff of that county, was enraged by the outcome. He had us arrested and imposed a massive wergild. There was no possibility we could pay it. It looked like death for us. But word of the incident had now reached the ears of Earl Corotocus, who was en route to Yarmouth with his army to take ship to Gascony. Always on the lookout for 'special soldiers', as he called them, he was happy to pay the fine for us."
"And how long have you been returning that favour?"
"To date it's been three years. We have seven remaining."
Gurt looked puzzled. "You might have lost the war in Gascony, but surely you took booty? Couldn't you have bought your way out by now?"
"Father has never wanted to."
"Your father would rather serve? He seems a mild man."
Ranulf stood up, stretching the cramp from his chilled limbs. Again, he lifted the panel. Milky daylight was flooding across the Welsh landscape. White vapour hung in its fathomless woods.
"In his old age, father's become introspective. 'Forget the tournament', he says. 'Earl Corotocus fights real wars. That's where the plunder is. When we've served our term, we'll be wealthy. Our lives will be restored'."
"And I thought he wanted to while away this war in the safety of Grogen Castle?"
Ranulf shrugged. His father had become a conundrum to him. Even though only a few years had passed, it was difficult to compare the pale, withdrawn figure that Ulbert FitzOsbern now was with the laughing, brawling, golden-haired seigneur who'd once welcomed all guests — whether bidden or unbidden — to his stockaded manor house at Byford, who'd always ridden in his overlord's vanguard roaring like a demon, twirling his battle-axe around his head. Regret, guilt, a sense of failure — they could do strange things to even the toughest man.
"It's hardship, misery… penance for the loss of our home," Ranulf finally said. "To father, this service is something we deserve. Something we must work off through blood and toil, though under Earl Corotocus it's usually someone else's blood."
"And that doesn't worry your father?"
"Not as much as it once did. Once, he was a moral man, a strict adherent to the code. Now he is focussed purely on 'cleaning his slate', as he calls it."
Gurt was about to reply when they heard a curious noise. At first they weren't sure what it was or where it came from — it echoed over the river and into the forest on the south shore. They glanced around, puzzled. Slowly, it became clear that what they were hearing was a voice calling out — but a fearsome, pealing voice, eerily high pitched.
"Eaaarl Corotocus!" it seemed to be saying, though the distance and the acoustics of the castle's outer rampart distorted it. "Eaaarl Corotocus!"
Gurt leaned through the embrasure. All along the curtain-wall, the other sentries were doing the same. As one, they looked unnerved.
"It's coming from somewhere to the west," Ranulf said.
From their position, they could just make out the south edge of the western bluff. The Inner Fort and the towering edifice of the Constable's Tower masked the rest of it.
"Eaaarl Corotocus!" the voice called again. It sounded female, though there was nothing sweet or gentle in it.
"What the devil's happening?" Gurt wondered.
Ranulf offered to go and see, suggesting that Gurt stay at his post. Gurt nodded, buckling on his sword-belt.
The quickest access down into the bailey from the curtain-wall was afforded by a mass of support scaffolding, which had various ladders zigzagging through it. Ranulf scaled down one of these, and followed the bailey around the outskirts of the Inner Fort until he'd reached the castle's northwest corner, at which point he climbed a steep flight of steps and passed through a barred postern onto the Barbican. From here, he entered the Gatehouse and traipsed back along the Causeway to the Constable's Tower. In total it was a ten-minute walk, and he still had to ascend to the roof of the Constable's Tower, by which time Earl Corotocus had been wakened from his slumber.
The earl, clad only in boots and leather breaches, with a bearskin cloak swathed around his muscular torso, was by the western battlements. He looked uncharacteristically tousled, though marginally less so than Hugh du Guesculin, who had also thrown on a cloak but still looked ridiculous in a full-length woollen nightgown. Navarre, more predictably, was already harnessed for war in his mail and leather. This applied to several other of the earl's household knights, who had been posted here and had shared the night watch between them. Of Corotocus's lieutenants, only Davy Gou, captain of the royal archers, and Morgaynt Carew, the Welsh malcontent, were present. At the north end of the Causeway, Garbofasse and his mercenaries watched from the top of the Gatehouse.