Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,125
be speared like meat on a skewer or crushed by a falling stone. And this was only the first obstacle. The main tower lay beyond.
He gained the top of the palisade, pulled himself over on to the walkway, and, with sword drawn, ran towards the gates.
A defender came at him with a hand axe. He avoided the downward chop of the blade and with a side-swipe, knocked his assailant off the palisade. The soldier struck the bailey floor with a solid thud and Brian suppressed a heave. The world had run mad, and this was hell.
In several places the palisade was burning. Brian caught a lungful of hot smoke and turned aside, coughing. Someone else came at him and he dodged and cut and struck and felt sick.
An arrow slammed into the side of his coif, spinning him to the ground. Blood filled his right eye.
“Sire!” William Boterel leaned over him. “Sire…”
“Take the men!” Brian gasped. “Get that gate open. We can’t lose the impetus! Go!”
Boterel did as he was bidden, leaving Brian to be attended by a serjeant. “Just a surface wound, sire,” the man said. “Arrow’s 309
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lodged in the mail. You’ll have a red stripe tomorrow, no worse.” He snapped off the shaft with a grunt. “Lucky though.” Brian removed his helm and coif and gazed at the arrowhead, his vision blurred with blood. The serjeant produced a strip of bandage and used it to wipe Brian’s eye and stanch the wound.
He strove to his feet. The broken shaft and arrowhead on the walk reminded him of a snapped quill pen. Picking up his sword, he drew a shaken breath. He had to carry this through, and write his will in blood and fire, because how else was he going to be a leader of men, keep his word to Matilda, and give her a crown?
The thatch on the outbuilding roofs was ablaze and men fought amid swirls of smoke and stinging sparks. Brian strode among his soldiers, shouting encouragement, urging them on, and forcing himself forward. “For the empress!” he bellowed, wiping a fresh trickle of blood from his eye corner. “For the rightful queen of England!”
As dawn paled the eastern horizon, Brian and his men over-came the last resistance on the outer works and tore down the gates. Then it was on to the tower itself. No scaling here, just brushwood and pitch and flaming arrows. Some defenders tried to escape by ropes from the battlements and were shot down by Wallingford’s archers. Those who reached the ground were taken for ransom if wealthy enough. If not, they were stripped of their weapons, purses, and clothing and sent on their way in their underwear. Brian had the booty, such as it was, piled up outside the gates while the tower burned, surrounded by a ring of fiery palisade. His right temple throbbed as if a small drum was being beaten against his orbit and brow bone. He could only half see out of his right eye.
Facing the gateway, he watched Miles FitzWalter come towards him. The man’s surcoat and face were freckled with soot and blood, but his smile was incandescent.
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“Success!” he cried. “Stephen’s going to be too busy running hither and yon to return and rebuild these for a very long time, if ever.” He cocked his head and considered Brian’s injury.
“Close one,” he said.
Brian reached up to touch the clotted line at the side of his eye. “It was one of our own arrows,” he said. “Taken up and shot back.”
“Always the most dangerous.” Hands on hips, Miles turned in a slow circle and nodded with satisfaction. “A good night’s work. That, my lord, is how you run rings around your enemy.” 311
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Thirty-six
Gloucester Castle, Spring 1140
M atilda paced up and down her chamber in agitation.
“It is intolerable,” she snapped at Brian, who stood by the hearth looking wary. “I will not stand for this!” He avoided her gaze. He had been at court since Christmas, working tirelessly on arguments supporting her right to be queen and her son’s right to inherit. Negotiations were about to take place in Winchester, brokered by Bishop Henry, the proposal being that Stephen would acknowledge Matilda’s claim to the crown in right of her descendants and grant her the rule of Normandy in her lifetime. Her son Henry would be brought to England and sworn in as heir to the throne.