Under Siege

October 11, 1215

Sir William d’Albini, Knight of Belvoir, was in a hurry.

The knight ignored the cold wind watering his eyes as his nag’s hooves thumped on the road and splashed through puddles jetting mud while breath steamed from the horse’s nostrils. He released the reins to wipe the snot from his nose with the back of his right chain mail-covered sleeve. There was no time to avoid children playing outside their cottages. The wind feathered and flattened smoke that came from the chimneys on untidily thatched roofs. The children’s mothers grabbed them away from the Roman highway, Watling Street, as they clapped their terrified eyes on Sir William and his trampling cloak-flying retinue, a force of one hundred and forty-five knights, crossbowmen, and sergeants. The barons, an elite core, chosen to stage a rebellion along with the bowmen were singled out for their courage, fortitude, and chivalric skill.

Sir William rode on thinking of the other knights who had seized and blockaded London in May and were satisfied with the force’s value, although its election had been swift. He thought about his last-minute nomination to lead the rebels because of his bravery, a man coined with the phrase: ‘bold in spirit and tried in war.’ His mind raced back to June when he’d joined twenty-five trustees who’d forced King John to press his seal on the Great Charter. The monarch had been defeated in a three-year civil war but the seizure of the capital had forced him to stamp the document.

Albini cast his eyes over the flat Kent landscape as he and his helmeted brigade thundered past settlements that, here and there, rested along the highway. It was the only route between London and Dover that they could ride through. He galloped on, rushing to a strong fortress that lay midway at Rochester between the capital and the port if he and his band of rebels had any hope of blockading the king’s advance. He sped up his nag if he and his horsed throng weren’t to be easily outmanoeuvred by thousands of mounted royal troops and foreign mercenaries riding from the south coast in a diagonal northwest direction. But many marched. Sir William eased his horse for a few minutes to speak to Sir William of Eynesford, a knight whose burly frame he had a friendly liking.

“Aye, William, it’s a black day the way things have come to, don’t you think?”

Eynesford nodded. “We’re all full to the back shit with the whoreson’s demands. The increased scutage tax bit deep and deeper even though the war with France is over. I, for one, am glad that I agreed that Langton should invite the French prince over to replace our so-called king. I was also glad to fist and thump my pledge with the rest of the twenty-five of us. Do you know our king shagged my wife on at least one occasion? I forced it out of her. I didn’t get an admittance from the whoreson.”

“One of the pleasures he thinks he can have whenever he likes,” Albini snorted. “Langton’s already negotiating with the French, I believe.” The leader paused to wipe his nose with the back of his gloved hand. ”I doubt if an Archbishop of Canterbury would want to stay around to pick a fight. The quarters of the French king’s heir, Louis, are a much safer place than yonder fortress we’re heading to.”

“I admired Stephen’s refusal to surrender the keep into John’s hands but into ours. But negotiating the invitation across the Channel showed he wasn’t gutsy enough to face the king’s wrath for doing so. So I guess it speaks for itself.” Eynesford bit his lower lip.

“Yes, he might have twisted his head on a spike or chopped off his hands and feet, not to mention how Innocent III had excommunicated him for drafting the Charter. Can you believe our supposed ‘Sovereign Liege’ could bring himself to honour its fair, just, and practical terms to limit his power to stranglehold us, to wring more and more money out of us?”

“A monarch with his reputation? Don’t make me laugh or spit. Which would you prefer?”

“Either.”

And now he’s gone and arse-wiped Innocent to have it annulled. John’s been as good as his duplicitous word, that’s for sure. It was nice to be a key player when we had the upper hand briefly on that field. What’s it called? Along the Thames between Staines and Windsor? It felt smug bringing John to his knees.”

“Runnymede”

“Aye, Runnymede.”

“How would you rate the document now?” Albini didn’t need an answer. He merely wanted a reaction from his ally.

“Does one exist?”

“It does in our hearts and minds.”

“You mean a scrap of paper, then?”

“The very same.”

“Torn to shreds. How would you rate it?”

Albini prodded his right forefinger on the left side of his chest then his forehead. “The parchment’s been crumpled up,”

“Any other way?”

“Trod in the mud.”

Both riders fell silent for a few moments until Albini kicked and spurred his horse to regain his position at the front.

“You call yourself a king, eh? More like a treacherous dog, a whoreson, a rascal; a coward to boot!” Albini shouted and spat out the rhetorical question, the insults, and bit his lower lip. He thought with another regret, one of many, how he’d sworn fealty sixteen years earlier with John’s crowning. The king had repaid the loyalty during the following years with extortion, and increased taxation to regain the coveted Angevin territories, most of western France. Their capture by Philip Augustus the French monarch ended in Normandy. But John’s campaign had failed; much like everything else to do with this king, Albini scorned. It started the civil war.

Albini’s restless anger made him slacken the reins and dig his spurs into his horse. He shuffled his stifling body beneath his thick woollen gambeson under twenty kilograms or so of mail shirt covered in a light woollen sleeveless tunic emblazoned with his coat of arms. It was drawn in at the waist by a thick leather belt attached to his sheathed sword. Like the others, he had an axe, and a mace strapped to his saddle.

Sir John de Lacy, another burly knight and close supporter, admired Sir William’s brazen anger and galloped alongside the leader. Albini turned his head and glanced into the glazed eyes of his companion.

“Do you think we can hole ourselves inside yonder fortress indefinitely?” de Lacy asked.

“Aye. As long as it is necessary.”

“Until the prince arrives from the Continent?”

“Until then,” Albini answered.

De Lacy dropped his eyes. The heated moment prevented him from broaching a set of problems he foresaw. His mind brought up several questions. What if Louis changed his mind or didn’t make it if John should defeat the rebels and secure the highway to London? How were they going to get supplies when they needed any into the fortress if they blockaded themselves inside the tower which might last for weeks?Wouldn’t the king, equally determined, apart from summoning an entire royal force, have the advantage of being stationed outside with his mercenaries whom he’d brought over from Flanders to reinforce the entourage? What about missing any wenches he and his sex-starved companions might encounter? Smaller shortcomings raced through his mind.

Brushing away the problems he noticed from his companion’s expression, Sir William continued staring into his glazed eyes and asked: “Swearing further fealty to a money-wringer, torturer, and a rascal is unthinkable. Don’t you agree?”

“But he is the king and has more resources and manpower at his disposal” de Lacey shifted on his saddle and felt uncomfortable with Albini’s torrent of insults. “He’s also called on those Flemish mercenaries to rally their support who will now be surrounding and upholding him. A tactical move by all accounts.”

“Bah!” Albini spat. “Has he? Let’s hope we can occupy the keep and hold out inside it before he and they get here, then. It’ll be worth a few pisses.” His crude remark and resolute tone carried a bitterness that was hard for a knight with lesser metal to swallow, nor among the throng riding behind. Their extremity and loyalty were about to be tested.

“Indeed.” de Lacy agreed. “And when is Sir Reginald de Cornhill expecting us?”

“About noon, I suspect. I sent wordto my cousin FitzWalter a few days ago.”

“A couple of hours from here. And the constable wasn’t reluctant to surrender the holding?”

“Dammit, man, he sent out the appeal, didn’t he?” Albini snapped back. “The message arrived several days ago. He’s up to his neck in debt to the treacherous bastard like the rest of us. He won’t miss a chance to get even. He knows his one hundred and twenty-five-foot tower with walls twelve feet thick is one of the stoutest most durable fortresses in this part, if not the entire kingdom, as we shall presently see.” But he was worried that Sir Robert FitzWalter mightn’t have cleared any doubts in Cornhill’s mind if he needed to, to align himself with the rebellion over traditional adherence – to a king.

De Lacy thought it best not to press the chagrined knight with further questions. Before he dropped behind, he let his eyes wander and rest on his coat of arms emblazoned over his large wooden triangular shield with a curved top. He couldn’t help comparing the emblem with Albini’s golden lion surrounded by a light red background.

The leader again spurred his nag and continued to nurse his hubris; how he wanted to unsheathe and ram the tip of his sword through John’s mouth watching with infinite delight at the blood spray and spurt from the bastard’s neck and mouth. This monarch’s not worth an arse-wipe, he thought. The imagined sword thrust was enough to subdue his feelings as long as it showed unashamed contempt. A monarch was supposed to honour and symbolize the trappings of the chivalric code, decorum, and courtly conduct.

Another knight, huddling among the riding pack, Sir Roger de Montbegon, found it difficult to suppress some of his weaknesses. His sexual urges rose quite quickly. He couldn’t rid his desire to romp and lie with his wife whom he’d forcibly torn himself away, and from their children in his holding, the Hornby Estate in the Lancashire wolds. The urges made him worry about how he was going to suppress them now that he had resolved to help block the king’s impending advance. He braced on pitting his face in his cloak to block out the wind as he galloped. But his thoughts wandered to what sexual delights he could have for the taking among any of the wenches that might inhabit the keep’s bailey or in the city’s taverns. The Baron of Hornby hoped about the chance of a wench inside the castle confines but that put him in conflict, in danger of breaking his pledge to be one of its loyal and consistent occupiers. The heated activity about to take place inside the walls of the Rochester keep would quickly change his mind and drive away more bodily appetites.

The late morning wind blew into Sir William’s face as he and the men galloped by the River Medway that ran beside the Rochester stronghold shortly before it merged with the sea.

“There it is. Can you not see yonder impregnable fortress towering above and surrounding its bailey even with watered eyes?” Albini swiftly turned his head and shouted back to de Lacy.

The knight quickly wangled his way through the throng to rejoin the leader. “You mean yonder high square construct?” The asked-for confirmation, judging by the sound of Sir William’s reaction, showed it was unnecessary.

“Of course! Dammit, man! Where else? There’s no building hereabouts that’s as towering or impregnable. It’s visible for miles. What others hereabouts and afar could there be?”

De Lacy fell silent as Albini’s right hand, having released his horse’s reins, lingered in the direction as they neared the thick stone fortress on the opposite side of the river. He couldn’t stare at anything else. Apart from the approaching city, the landscape was flat and barren marshland except for dotted peasant steads or holdings and larger clustered settlements.

“Do you know how much the arse-wipe’s great-grandfather spent on the fortress?” Sir William turned the question to de Lacy who still rode with him.

“Er, I’m not quite sure.” The knight fingered his beard.

“Almost a third of the country’s wealth. The Norman construct had taken the sitting archbishop ten years to build, ten years, mark you. The wooden fortresses erected during the bastard Conqueror’s reign became easy penetrable targets a while after his victory at Hastings. Henry 1st and 2nd soon saw the need for a stone upgrade. The mound of turf and shingle underneath has stood well enough, though.”

Albini broke away. The moment he rode opposite the Rochester stronghold, the stone fortress felt instantly intimidating. Its soaring walls forced him to pull up his nag and look at them. The horse snorted, caught its breath and tossed its head. Its mane wisped and fluttered in the breeze. The knight couldn’t help scrutinizing the castle’s every stone inch. The neatly tiered Norman-arched windows went upwards towards the battlements which lay in-between and on top of four square towers at each corner. His eyes dropped, narrowed, and travelled along the stout walls to slitted outlets dotted up and down one of the walls that soared up the southeast corner of the building, then over the main area. The slits would serve as good designs to take a crossbow aim to ward off any flying arrows, Sir William thought shrewdly. His eyes rested on the edifice for a few moments longer. He made up his mind. Besides the crossbow, a lethal and feared weapon, the king would have no chance. The fortress looked completely impregnable. Failure to block and defeat the monarch was unthinkable. But hadn’t Sir William at that moment become delusional? Weren’t he and his band of men pitted against a determined, intractable, vindictive arse-wipe of a monarch he’d called him?

Albini’s men, as they neared their mounted leader, wondered why he’d stopped suddenly. Although the keep attracted attention, they couldn’t muster as much faith in its ability to block the coming royal assault as Albini. It would be up to his charisma, determination, and persuasion to polish off any spineless doubts that lay buried in their guts while they occupied the confines.

Sir William loosened his right-hand grip from the reins, raised it well above his head and gave a wide arm signal which pushed his men onwards. The knights soon clustered and thundered across the timber-arched bridge that spanned the Medway. Albini was undaunted by the news that the bridge had recently been targeted and threatened because it led to the city, the bailey and the fortress.

The wooden construct swayed and rumbled underneath the clattered hooves of the galloping throng as its wooden sides almost splintered and burst into the river. It was the waterway’s only crossing between London and Dover. Otherwise, a rider on a mounted steed, to reach the far bank, would have to wade his horse or swim for it. It had almost been destroyed about three weeks earlier when John secretly sent a band of men to set fire to it. But FitzWalter and a band of men prevented the saboteurs; either killed by a surprise attack or had fled.

Once the noblemen cleared the bridge, their nags whinnied. Their legs bucked and kicked as the riders pulled on the reins in front of the large arched portcullis that led through to the bailey.

“Who goes there? What say you?”A sentry standing on the parapet behind the wall’s battlements gripping an axe in one hand and a bow and arrow in the other called down.

“This here is Sir William d’Albini.” The leader pressed his right thumb into his chest and pointed his right forefinger at the riders. “These are the rebels who have been chosen to stop the king’s advance to regain his key seat of power of which I’m their leader. Sir Reginald is expecting us. Inform him at once of our arrival.”

The soldier disappeared leaving Albini impatiently mounted for a few minutes. A couple of servants, appointed to man the iron grid gate that led to a thick wooden doorway, turned two handles. The grid squeaked upwards. Once the ropes tautened and held up the gate, the doorway opened. Albini and his men thundered as their horses’ hooves clattered like heavy rainwater on steel as they went through the torch-lit archway.

Albini pulled up his horse and scanned the deserted surroundings. Silence ensued in the bailey normally a hive of activity with the keep occupied. Cooks and servants ran to and from the kitchen to the tower with dishes weighted with fish, hunks of pork, veal, mutton, and on an occasional lord’s visit, venison. Stable lads mucking out the buildings, laying fresh hay, servants taking a break, felt silent as a graveyard. There were no falconers, or huntsmen around, no place to watch a couple of helmeted knights pitch their shields and lances towards each other and put on a riveting jousting match. The bailey grounds had become no place for entertainment. The kitchen, regular dining room, and the stables, looked like graveyard tombs. Fires, which Sir Reginald allowed the city’s beggars to enter and warm themselves, had smouldered.

The horsed knights with their retinue abruptly ended the silence as they covered a large area and quickly dismounted. Waiting stable hands, part of a skeleton staff, grabbed the reins and led the snorting nags to the stable buildings. They crammed against each other, unsaddled their backs and removed the empty spurs.

Albini wasn’t in the mood to slow down. The scabbard housing his sword swung to and fro as his leather boots stomped through the unhorsed crowd which waited for his next move. His woollen tunic reached well below his knees and flapped in the wind as he crossed an open drawbridge and leapt up a broad snaking staircase which led to the keep’s main entrance. A wide chiselled arched design, fifteen feet from its base, surrounded by the fore building, led from another arched portcullis. He thumped his right fist on the oak iron-studded door which jostled an unbolted and unlatched hooped handle. Its wings flung open. In the middle of the entrance stood a man of medium height dressed in a heavy dark red velvet tunic sleeked to his feet fastened at the waist with a thick brown leather belt. Around his neck, hung a long chain of office with a pendant at the bottom bearing an insignia. Middle-aged, he had brushed-forward short greying hair and a neatly cut beard.

He still looks dignified, but Cornhill has aged somewhat, Albini thought as he scrutinized the constable’s haggard and lined face whose grey eyes matched and pierced his own.

To Cornhill’s left stood a taller figure dressed like Albini, although slighter. His hair and a finely trimmed beard, the colour of copper, matched piercing blue eyes. Robert FitzWalter immediately clapped his eyes on Sir William, stepped forward with Cornhill, and the three men embraced and clasped each other’s hands crooking their thumbs.

“Good, my lord William, on your safe and timely arrival,” Cornhill thought it best to be formal. “I have no doubt where my loyalties lie, and it’s with your cause and the rebellions, although I can’t envisage its outcome. I suspect you have no doubts.”

Sir William breathed a sigh of relief. Any doubts about Cornhill’s disloyalty fled from his mind. “None whatsoever.”

“Well, I’m pledged to engage in this fight until the last of your men are standing. But, my lord, I must beg - .”

Cornhill’s appeal was interrupted by FitzWalter who couldn’t resist bestowing adulation to a fellow magnate and one suitably appointed to lead the rebels he could see crowding the staircase below.

“It is good to press fists and join hands again, cousin William. Much has passed since we were present at the great signing, at least those signatures inscribed by us.”

“Aye, those by us. I thought, it’s a sad day that events should have come to this, is it not? Most, if not all of us, would prefer to be at our lands and tenures with our wives and children.”

“Aye, I readily concur,” FitzWalter replied. “But what could we do? Have our rights, dignities, and vassalage continuously trampled underfoot? It was a hard job putting down that plot to set fire and destroy yonder bridge which you’ve just ridden over. Many of the king’s men were killed.”

Noticing Sir Robert’s helmet, tucked in the crook of his right arm, and stood with his head covered in his mail; Albini hastily removed his shining headpiece and clasped it in the crook of his.

“No need for ceremony, William, especially as you’ll be replacing it when you and your men confront the king. I’d rather hoped to be joining you but…” FitzWalter tailed off the explanation and let his eyes drop from Albini’s gaze.

“But what?”

“Supplies! Provisions!” Cornhill interrupted. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

’There aren’t any.” FitzWalter got to the point.

“You are welcome to occupy my castle, but how you are going to sustain yourself and well over a hundred men is something I just can’t imagine.” Cornhill’s tone was subdued as he paced beyond the front of the door and stood peering down at the waiting knights.

Albini suppressed dismay as he strode out and stood beside the constable. “Is it okay to admit them?” Before Cornhill gave his assent, the leader softly added. “You’ll still have to show me.”

“I will once your men get settled, but I don’t know how you’re going to feed over a hundred men let alone one.”

Albin brushed the enormous problem away. Letting John off the hook was too big a sacrifice. Cornhill stood and wondered at the leader’s determined expression given the odds against him.

It didn’t take long for the ground floor to fill with the rebellious knights, sergeants, and crossbowmen who thought about very little except to defend the key fortress they stood in. Cornhill quickly led them to the great hall which was on the floor above parted by a thick arched wall in the middle which reached to the top. The tall arches led through to the other side of the floors. The men started to sit wide-legged on trestles to separate their shields, swords, axes, maces and crossbows already clattered in by the bowmen and several of Cornhill’s servants. Normally used for banquets or feasting in honour of a visiting high lord or knight, Albini stood astride and stared into one of the ashen fireplaces. The last logs, long since smouldered, showed no sign of scraps left over from the previous feast which would have been thrown, fought, and growled over by the keep’s hounds housed in kennels.

“If you need any further convincing, Lord William, I can direct you to the cellar.

“Lead the way.” Despite his resilient approach to the impending hardship, there was a glimmer of hope that something called nourishment remained.

Cornhill lit a torch and led the way down some winding steps past the fore building that cornered into rooms, usually stacked barrels of wine and ale. The largest adjoining room is normally stocked with fresh fish, partridge, capon, mutton, beef, hinds of pork, the finest of herbs, and vegetables freshly picked from local farmsteads. If not local, the produce came from other shires or shipped across the Channel. Albini could see from the flickering flame, kicked-over casks either empty or contained mead and ale that had soured. The other room stank of rotting cabbage strands and mouldy bread nibbled away by mice that had slipped in through the floor or had found a way through cracks in the wall.

Noticing Albini’s distaste at the nibbled scraps, Cornhill said: “We do our best to keep these rooms clear of rodents but as there’s nothing to preserve I can’t see the point unless there’s an infestation. And this is neither a jolly nor auspicious occasion to worry about trifles.”

Albini stood pondering how he was going to resolve the nightmare he faced.

“So, I do appreciate what you’re up against, I really do,” Cornhill entreated.

Albini said nothing as his host retraced his steps and torch-lit the way up the steps. He stood again in the centre of the main hall. A fine spacious place for banquets and banqueting, and minstrels, he stared upwards at hanging cloths which emblazoned several coats of arms but now looked lank and neglected. This wasn’t an occasion for feasting with any jocularity right under where they hung, he thought. He looked around at his men; some sat on trestles with hands resting on the front of their thighs as far apart waiting for his instructions which, given the pressured situation, wasn’t long in coming. Commands, on the tip of his tongue, stopped when Robert FitzWalter strode over. His pace caused d’Albini to abruptly turn his astonished face.

“William,” his cousin and comrade spoke stiffly, “the situation here looks rather bleak, if not hopeless. I shall proceed at once to the capital and return with several hundred knights. Our men shall bring supplies and reinforcements to strengthen your operation within a matter of weeks if not days. As I said before, I would dearly wish to remain here to support it but it looks as though my services and influence are best used elsewhere.”

Before Albini could intervene, FitzWalter leapt down the steps to the fore building, stormed through the portcullis, and out of the main entrance. After he mounted his brown nag, the men manning the bailey’s portcullis had barely enough time to crank up the iron barrier before he galloped out, crossed the bridge, and headed back the way Albini and his knights had come. His sleek brown cloak blew out in the wind.

Albini stood rooted. Despite the difficulty of getting provisions brought in, he wasn’t that worried. He wondered if FitzWalter was suffering from a panic attack as he stood staring at the fled scene and the opened entrance. Most would accuse Albini of having taken leave of his senses if their attitude was reflected in FitzWalter’s brazen actions but he had already fought off an assault to block the rebels’ access to London. He pondered for several minutes. Having barely seen the keep’s bare and dismal cellar, and how his enforced occupation of the building was unpredictable, there was no way of knowing how long it would last. He turned to his men and beckoned his right forefinger to forty that looked the ablest. He strode over to Cornhill’s side.

“Sir Reginald. Do you have any baskets and sacks?”

The keeper looked up startled at being addressed in what was a gruff and urgent manner.

“You may find some stacked in the bailey storehouse, oh! and some against a corner at the far end.”

“I’m much obliged. I shall commission their use at once.”

“You mean, you intend to scurry around the vicinity for anything in the way of produce you can get your hands on?”

“Of course. Why else?”

“You have my heartfelt good wishes in your endeavour if you can find sufficient.”

Cornhill knew precious little could be scavenged but he didn’t want to disappoint Albini who, immediately, ordered the forty men he’d chosen to pick up the baskets and sacks and see what they could find in the town and from as many peasants and serf settlements that lay close at hand; even scavenging from the streets and alleys.

Once the servants dispersed themselves into the deserted bailey, Albini ordered his knights and the bowmen to take up strategic positions inside the castle walls. He put some at either side of the slitted openings, others on the battlements, and several at key points along the bailey’s parapet that faced the Medway and the land that went beyond the city to the southeast and west.

“It would have to do,” Albini muttered as he watched his men take up their ordered positions. He quickly inspected how they’d manned themselves,and the bowmen well equipped with bolts that could nicely penetrate an enemy’s armour, he thought with a smile.

All went silent.

Meanwhile, the servants and the chosen knights grabbed and lodged a sack in the hollow, shouldered a basket, and sped into Rochester’s dusty dirt-ridden streets. Rather than thinking it would be a big task to find supplies, they rushed into rickety wooden buildings hoping to find something. After begging resident cooks and delving through piles of refuse they managed to extract rotten tomatoes and apples, unwanted eggs from chickens that strutted in the backyards, cabbages, and some lettuces. At other places, they got a few carcasses of a sheep, the odd lambs. At another, they hurled five rotting pigs into three large baskets. Others hurried towards settlements that grew vegetables. They demanded the astonished peasants and serfs who were out tending to their crops to hand over any produce they could give.

The sporadic knights and servants managed to salvage turnips, radishes, carrots, beetroots, potatoes, and cabbages. They carried two baskets of apples, some rotten, enough to keep the men holed up within the castle confines, chomping for several days. But none of these supplies, ample as they looked, would be enough to feed over a hundred knights should the hole-up run beyond days. And there was nothing left to fill their empty bellies. All the lands which grew crops had been partly scoured, as had streets, and alleyways which ran with filth and another effluence, had their nooks and crannies rummaged. But that was all the men could muster in a short time. The king and his innumerable force would arrive in a matter of days if not hours. There was nothing to do except to return shouldering the sacks and lugging the baskets.

A bitter wind blew up in front of the men watering their eyes as they returned lugging the produce through the Bailey’s portcullis. The vegetables shook and shuddered inside the baskets as the men pulled them up the steps to the keep’s Romanesque-style entrance and left in front of Sir William who stood with legs astride in the middle of the fore building.

“Is this all you could find?” Albini asked brusquely.

“Yes, Sir William. We could have foraged for more but there wasn’t time. You instructed us to find as much as we could in as short a span as possible.”

A member of the party, although looking defensive, couldn’t help feeling he’d disappointed the leader and spoke up.”

“Bah! He’ll soon give up. We’ll hold out. We’ll win. We have to.”

While the men were absent foraging, Albini took another look at the walls that were twelve feet thick and ran his finger along one area, a caress that melted into his head such thoughts and illusions like the whoreson king’s not got the metal for this.

But how much did he and his men?

Albini again went into disbelief he and the rebels wouldn’t hold out that, due to the impregnable castle’s walls, they’d get the upper hand over the king as he put the forty among those he’d already stationed. Apart from the crossbowmen, the knights grabbed their shields.

Should John turn up the next day or the day after and challenge a confrontation, they’d be ready.