Chapter XVIII Heard Underground
On the twenty-second of June 1224, the king arrived at Bedford, and the siege of the castle commenced almost immediately. Outside the town, on the Northampton road, pavilions were pitched for himself, for Hubert de Burgh the justiciary, and other great officers, while the troops and their officers, Ralph de Beauchamp among them, were quartered in rude shelters near the castle, or billeted upon the townsfolk, that they might be ready to repel any sortie which the besieged might make with a view of burning the engines of war. Close to these latter were encamped the men who worked them, together with the miners, carpenters, and other artificers ready for their respective turn of duty.
Before any hostile movement was commenced, however, the king, in due form, summoned the castle to surrender. An ecclesiastic was detailed for the purpose; for priests in those days often performed strange functions.
It was but an empty form, for no one expected that the king’s command would be obeyed. Moreover, Sir Fulke de Breauté himself was not in the castle. With the astute craftiness which pervaded all his actions, he had gone away some little while before, leaving his brother in command. He took himself off into Wales, where he joined the Earl of Chester, who, though siding for some time with the king, had left him, in conjunction with some other barons, under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
As was to be expected, William de Breauté made answer to the archdeacon—for such was the office of the king’s messenger—that he had received no orders from his brother to surrender the castle, and that he certainly should not do so without authority from him. So the siege was begun without delay.
The method of taking a castle in those days was much the same as that which continued in vogue till, long afterwards, stone walls gave place to earthworks. The walls were first battered by stones thrown from the petraria, and when a breach had been made a storming-party rushed in. The only change consequent upon the introduction of gunpowder was that cannon then took the place of the stone-throwing engines.
The machines were placed one or two on each side of the castle, and they must have been of considerable size and strength, as one of them projected stones right across the river. The men who worked them were protected against the quarrels, arrows, and other missiles directed at them from the walls, by screens made of ox and horse hides. Two lofty erections, which towered far above the fortifications of the castle, were manned by slingers and cross-bowmen, who thence shot down upon the garrison on the walls and in the baileys below them.
Close up against the face of the wall itself was pushed a movable screen, called the “cat,” the object of which was to protect John de Standen and his men as they carried on their work of undermining the walls.
Ralph was ordered by his superior officer, a grim old baron who had been one of those assembled at Runnymede when John signed the charter, but who now supported his son, to pay special attention to the mining operations. To Ralph and John de Standen attached himself one who could hardly be called a soldier, though he exhibited all the courage and zeal which are the necessary qualities of a man of war. This was the young lay-brother from St. Alban’s. He was received as a sort of volunteer, and was granted permission to serve in the mining work, for his religious vows, he said, forbade him to carry sword or spear. This young man proved, however, a valuable assistant.
A kind of friendly rivalry went on between the two branches of warfare into which the besiegers were divided. Those who had charge of the engines favoured the notion of pounding the walls till they battered them down. The sappers and miners, however, built their hopes of reducing the fortress upon their methods of burrowing underneath it. But before these latter were able to push on far with their works, the besiegers above ground gained two important advantages. They carried by assault the barbican or outer defence of the gate, and with but a loss of four or five men. By this means they were able to rush the gate itself, and in a second assault forced their way into the outer bailey or yard, the first one on the west side.
Here were the store-houses, and here also were kept the horses and live stock which the besieged took care to have always within the castle walls. Forage, grain, and such like bulky articles as could not be removed into the keep were likewise stored in the yard. All these fell into the hands of the besiegers, who removed the arms, the horses, and the pigs, and burned the buildings which contained the corn and hay. The besieged retreated within the inner wall, which defended the lesser bailey.
But between the upper and lower bailey there stood—a rather unusual feature in a Norman castle—a strong building known by the name of the “old tower.” It had probably something to do with fortifications which at an earlier date protected the bridge across the Ouse, before the castle precincts were prolonged westwards. Here the besieged gathered in strength and made an obstinate stand.
The assistance of John de Standen and his men was now necessary. The other defences, the barbican and the wall of the outer bailey, had been carried by assault, the soldiers climbing the walls and forcing their way within. But the wall which separated the two baileys, protected as it was by the old tower, proved a more formidable obstacle. The king’s troops intrenched themselves in the outer bailey, and the cat was wheeled into position ready for the operations of the miners.
These latter worked with a will. Ere long they were able to report to Ralph de Beauchamp, as their superior officer, that the foundations of the old tower were undermined, and that the building would fall directly the stays and struts with which they had propped it up should be removed.
So Ralph went down into the mine with John de Standen, that he in his turn might report to his superiors that the underground work was indeed finished, and that the soldiers might be held in readiness to storm the inner bailey.
With some professional pride the king’s miner conducted the knight through the dark passages he had burrowed, explaining as he went the manner in which the supports should be removed directly he received the signal to do so.
They were just beneath the old tower, and John de Standen was enlarging on the excellent arrangements which he had made for the overthrow of the building, when, to their intense astonishment, a woman’s voice was heard speaking in the vault overhead.
“By my faith,” cried John de Standen, “but I wot not that we had dug so close to the lower vault of the tower. Methinks I must be out of my reckoning, Sir Knight, or mayhap your recollection of the place plays you false.”
“In good sooth we are close beneath the tower,” replied Ralph. “How thinkest thou, good John? Has the enemy countermined, or are they about to break in upon our works?”
Before John de Standen could vouchsafe an opinion, the voice again was heard from above.
“Ho, royal miners, are ye below?”
“We be miners sure enow,” called John de Standen in reply. “But who be ye above there?—They cannot be for Sir Fulke,” he added in a lower tone to Ralph, “or they would not let us hear them. Methinks, too, the voice is that of a woman or a boy.”
“I am for the king and his miners,” spoke the voice again. “But tell me, prithee, is your master, John de Standen, with thee?”
“I, John de Standen, myself am here, and speak; and with me is no one save Sir Ralph de Beauchamp,” replied the miner. “But speak; who art thou? Woman or boy; no man, I trow?”
“Now fie upon thee, John de Standen,” said the unseen speaker, “that thou knowest not the voice of Beatrice Mertoun.”
“Beshrew me, Beatrice, if I can know thy voice, an it be thou, if it come to me through these plaguy paving-stones,” cried De Standen. “Moreover, why askest thou, hearing me speak, if I am John de Standen?”
“Marry,” exclaimed Beatrice, “in the night all cats are gray. All men’s voices sound the same. But mind thee, John, how oft thou hast sworn that thou wouldest know my voice anywhere.”
John de Standen felt he was getting the worst of the argument. He changed the subject.
“And prithee, fair Beatrice, what art doing above us?”
“Hush! not so loud,” she answered. “I have but a few moments. The guard watch closely the vault ever since that machine of thine was dragged up against the tower. I marvel much that they have not heard the noise of thy workers, and broken in upon thee. But for many days have I too watched, hoping to get a word with thee, for I have a message to send to a knight. But stay—didst not say one Sir Ralph de Beauchamp was with thee?”
“In good sooth I am here,” replied Sir Ralph, both amused and puzzled by this unexpected and remarkable meeting between the king’s miner and a lady who seemed an old acquaintance, if nothing nearer. “I am here, lady fair, whosoever thou art, for methinks a fair face must e’en suit so sweet a voice.”
“She is the waiting-woman of the Lady Margaret de Ripariis, and a mighty comely damsel withal,” explained the bold miner.
“Now a truce to fair speeches! I have somewhat to say to Sir Ralph that ill brooks delay. The Lady Aliva, who is prisoner here—
“The Lady Aliva! I know it well!” shouted Ralph, forgetful of the caution to speak softly. “But tell me quick, I pray thee, is she safe? is she well?”
“Safe as yet,” replied Beatrice. “But there is mischief brewing against her. Say, did I not see thee carried away wounded from before the castle gate not many weeks since? They brought thy helmet into the castle. I showed it to the Lady Aliva, and she knew it for thine by the crest. And then darkness seized her mind, for not long after came Fulke de Breauté to her, and told her that thou wast slain!”
“The lying scoundrel!” cried Ralph hotly. “Could I but meet him, he would see I am yet alive!”
“Ere he quitted the castle he came oft to her with suit of marriage for his brother,” Beatrice went on, lying down upon the stone floor above and speaking with her mouth to an open joint she had discovered between two of the paving slabs. “Canst hear me, Sir Knight? The guards approach; I must tell thee in few words, for I hear the warders relieved not many posts away. William de Breauté came himself to the lady to plead his suit. But she hates him. She told him so to his face.”
“She told him so on his face!” muttered Ralph.
“But the chapel hath been prepared,” continued the waiting-woman, “and that traitor priest, Bertram de Concours, was ready. They dragged the lady thither by force. Sir Fulke and William de Breauté were waiting. What might have happened I know not, but my Lady Margaret stepped forward, and shamed the shameless man into respect for a lady.”
“And all this while she was faithful to me, though believing me dead!” exclaimed Ralph, half to himself.
“But Sir Fulke, ere he left for the marches of Wales, swore a great oath he would find her wedded ere he return, or else—And William de Breauté, he apeth the fine French gentleman. He maketh sweet speeches, and vows that when the king’s troops be driven back, and the care of the castle be passed from him, he will return to bask once more in the sunlight of his lady’s eyes! Faugh! the smooth-tongued villain! He has sung the same song to me, but not to my honour. But hist! they come!”
A sound, as of the trampling of armed men, penetrated to those below. Then the eager listeners there caught some words in a rough man’s voice.
“Pardie! pretty maiden, what doest here? Must pay forfeit with a kiss ere thou depart!”
Then there was the sound of a struggle and a scream, and John de Standen shook his fist in mute rage at the floor above him.