They were a sober, orderly lot, too, courteous and kind to me; and so I liked them. They had all brought food too, and it was comforting to know that while we had to shelter in the Tower, there would be plenty to eat.
There was precious little room in the lower part of the Tower for equine accommodation, but we managed to make our horses reasonably comfortable with food bags and water within reach of their noses. Then Robin and I climbed three storeys to the roof of the Tower by a narrow staircase in one corner of the building. As we surveyed the area around the castle keep, it dawned on me that we were surrounded. The King’s Tower had been built for defence, it was undeniably a secure fortress, but for us it was also a trap from which we could not easily escape. To the southwest ran the river Ouse, deep and slow; a fit man could swim it easily but what about a horde of Jewish grandmothers and suckling babies? There was no escape for us there. To the east ran the river Foss, once again unpassable except by one small bridge. To the north there was a line of campfires burning in the evening gloom around which milled scores of men-at-arms and townsfolk, clearly beginning to prepare their suppers. To the south was the bailey of the castle, now filling with the very people, the maddened Jew-haters, we had had to run from in the streets. It was full dark by now, but the bailey was so well lit with torches and fires that the scene was easy to make out. Hundreds of folk were milling around in confusion in the open space at the centre of the bailey, but a knot had gathered around a short speaker in a light-coloured robe by the chapel on the western side, who was holding a large wooden staff with a cross piece tied to it to make the holy symbol. He was haranguing the crowd and thumping the earth with his cross to emphasise his points, and I recognised the white-robed monk from that afternoon. His message seemed to be the same vile spew of poison as then, for every now and then he would fling out his arm and indicate the Tower. Beside him stood a tall knight in chainmail, a long sword at his waist, carrying a shield with the device of a scarlet clenched fist on a pale blue field. He looked familiar, but it was only when two men-at-arms approached with lit torches and stood beside him that I caught sight of his face. He had a shock of white hair in the centre of his forehead, standing out clearly from the russet mass of the rest, and I recognised the illiterate, feral-eyed foxy knight from my encounter with Prince John.
Just then Josce of York appeared beside us, his grey beard awry and out of breath from climbing the Tower’s stairs too fast, and the three of us stood at the battlements and stared out over the bailey. I was straining my ears to make out the white monk’s hate-filled words, when Robin spoke: ‘Who is that ill-looking knight?’ he asked Josce.
‘He is Sir Richard Malbete, sometimes called the Evil Beast,’ the tall Jew replied. ‘Some say he is part demon, for it is whispered that he loves the pain of other men more than he loves meat and drink. My friend Joseph of Lincoln holds his note for twenty thousand marks. He is a ferocious one, Malbete, and he hates all mankind, but especially he hates Jews. More than just for his great debts to us, I believe; he hates us with a passion that surpasses all earthly reason. Perhaps he really is a demon.’
‘He is a close friend of Prince John,’ I added. And both Josce and Robin looked at me in surprise. ‘He was at Nottingham two weeks ago.’
Robin nodded and then said to Josce: ‘And the other man, the white monk. Who is he?’
‘He is Brother Ademar, a wandering lunatic who formerly belonged to a Premonstratensian canonry; he escaped the cloister walls and has been preaching hatred against the Jews for a more than a month now, since your Christian season of Lent began. But the people listen to him for all his lunacy. They say he has been touched by God.’
Robin said nothing. But I remembered his comment earlier in the day: Someone should cut down that madman before he drowns the world in blood.
‘Can we hold out here until things become calmer — or the King sends help?’ asked Josce; he sounded more weary than worried. Robin looked around the small square of the Tower’s ramparts. About a score of angry-looking young Jewish men were watching the bailey from behind the crenellations, occasionally replying in kind to the insults from below. And every five yards or so along the parapet there was a pile of a dozen stones, each one about the size of a man’s head, which could he hurled down on any attacker with devastating effect. Robin always said that the main weapon in any castle’s armory was its height, and we were a good fifty feet above any adversaries. Stones that had been laboriously hauled up to the top by members of the former garrison could be sent back down again at great cost in blood to the enemy.
‘I believe so,’ said Robin. ‘We have enough men to see them off until help arrives or they come to their senses. It would be better if this place were stone-built. But I think we may hold them. As long as that rabble doesn’t get hold of any artillery.’ He looked at me. And I remembered with a shudder how, at the battle of Linden Lea, Sir Ralph Murdac had brought up a machine for throwing great boulders and how, once he had the range, the massive missiles had smashed through our wooden walls as if they were made of straw.
Josce seemed satisfied. ‘Will you come down and speak to everybody?’ he asked. ‘I think it would help.’
Robin stared at him for a second. His eyes were blank and metallic and the silence went on for an uncomfortably long time. ‘I will be down in a few moments. I must speak to Alan, first,’ he said finally.
Josce bowed his balding head. ‘Thank you. I will call everyone together,’ he said and he gathered up his robe to free his feet and moved away to the stairs.
When the old man had gone, Robin took me by the arm. ‘You must go, Alan. You can get out, you know.’ I merely stared at him in disbelief. He continued: ‘Wait until midnight, and take a rope from the stores. You just have to shin down the walls and swim the Ouse; even if you’re caught, as a Christian, you will be safe.’
‘We could both go,’ I said, testing him, although I knew what his answer would be.
‘I can’t leave,’ Robin looked me full in the face. ‘I need Reuben. Reuben is the money and the connection; I need to keep Reuben alive, or… well, I must keep him alive,’ he said simply, then: ‘I think this is going to be very bad, very bad indeed, and so I must urge you to leave — tonight. This is not your fight.’
I squared my shoulders, and looked back into his pale, grey eyes. ‘When I first entered your service,’ I said stiffly, ‘I swore that I would be loyal to you until death. I will not break that oath. If you will stay here and face battle against these madmen, then I will remain with you.’
‘You really are an idiot, Alan,’ said Robin but in a kindly voice, ‘a sentimental idiot. But thank you.’ And he smiled and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘So be it, then. We fight. Now I suppose I’d better go and rally the troops.’
With that, he was gone. I remained at the battlements staring out into the darkness and wondering whether I had made an enormous, possibly fatal mistake. The bailey seemed to be settling down for the night and I saw in the light of the few remaining torches hundreds of people making up beds under the eaves of the castle buildings while others, armed any-old-how with rusty spears and axes, rakes and scythes were standing guard, almost like regular soldiers. The white monk had ceased his shouting and gone, and of Sir Richard Malbete there was nothing to be seen. I looked down to my right, at the black Ouse, and saw that dozens of campfires had been now built between the bottom of the Tower mound and the river. The Jew-hating rabble had not dispersed, not at alclass="underline" they appeared to have grown in number, and someone was organising them, almost certainly a soldier — for they surrounded us like a besieging army. Whatever Robin had said, it would not have been easy for me to escape. The blood-hungry mob had not gone away, back to their homes, calmed by the falling of night, they were there to stay. And, come morning, they would try to get into the Tower. We were in for a hard fight. My hands went to my waist, to the hilts of my poniard and sword on either side of my body. If I were to die the next day, I would take a few of these damned lunatics with me, I said bravely to myself, but the ice-snake in my belly gave a little slither of fear.