We ran out of the keep and across the bailey. Jean-Luc had moved quickly to man the forward battlement. Other villagers were running about, bringing their pitchforks and swords forward, determined to drive back Sir Hugh and his invading hordes.
“Start the fires!” I yelled. My siege engines still stood at the ready. I hoped we would have enough earthen jugs and time to use them before Sir Hugh’s men could get a foothold on the walls.
“Tristan,” Robard yelled as we ran toward the battlements, “I don’t have enough arrows to even slow them down. You had better come up with something quick.”
“Can you shoot a crossbow?” I asked.
“Of course I can shoot a crossbow, but why would I want to?” he scoffed.
“Because it’s all we have at the moment. Save what arrows you have for when they are really needed.”
Robard nodded and cut toward the armory. Maryam and Celia were rallying the villagers along the northwest wall. Several of the village elders, with Angel’s assistance, were herding the children back into the keep. They would be safe there.
While they stoked the fires, I raced up the ladder to the forward battlement to survey the field. I was shocked by what lay before me. A quick count of regimento flags told me there were more than six hundred Templars on the field before us. Even with the loss of the High Counsel’s men, wherever they had gone, Sir Hugh had still gained numbers. For a moment, I was glad to at least be rid of Father Renard, though the way my luck went I was sure I would encounter him again somewhere. Sir Hugh was more than enough to deal with at the moment. If he had managed to gather more Templars from nearby commanderies, would more be arriving? And how soon?
It was almost dark but still light enough to see the lines forming. Several small groups had already raced forward to the walls and were making a halfhearted attempt to use scaling ladders, but they were paying a dreadful price as Jean-Luc’s crossbowmen cut through them.
At first I was confused by their tactics. Why were they not more deliberate in trying to overcome us on the battlements? I could not see Sir Hugh on the field in the gathering darkness, but something wasn’t right here. The Templars at the walls shouted now and then, and a few of them even chucked a few rocks at the crossbowmen, ducking behind shields when the bowmen answered with a shot, but their surge was unorganized and lacked intensity.
Then Sir Hugh’s plan was revealed and my mouth fell open to my chest.
From out of the tree line, pulled by several teams of horses and dozens of men, came a giant battering ram. It moved on four huge wooden wheels supported by a triangular base. From the framework hung a log, carved by ax to a sharp point, covered with an iron casing. It would be rolled up to the gate and then several teams of men would swing the log back and forth until the metal-tipped point battered down the doors.
Wooden shielding had been affixed over the frame to repel our flaming missiles and crossbowmen from harming the men below it. And I was sure the wood was green and coated in mud so it wouldn’t catch fire easily, at least not before they had broken through the gates.
As I watched the attack unfold, I was angry at myself for allowing Sir Hugh to dupe me so easily. I should have known he would never agree to leave without a fight. He had only sought to buy time until his reinforcements arrived and he could attack in force. But as Sir Thomas once told me, battle is no time to dwell on one’s mistakes. I had to regain my focus and figure a way to counter this move.
Down below, next to my small siege engines, the kettles of lard over the fires were bubbling. Robard, Jean-Luc and the crossbowmen held the battlement and pushed back the scaling ladders, but the men-at-arms below were not at all interested in climbing the ladders; they were only buying time and making us waste precious bolts until the battering ram could be rolled into place.
“Jean-Luc!” I shouted. “Hold your fire! Save your bolts for the men pushing the battering ram!” Celia stood at the southwest corner shouting orders.
“Celia, come with me, please. Hurry!” She left Martine in charge and we made our way down to the courtyard.
We reached the fires below a few seconds later. “I need you to tell everyone manning a siege engine to get the lard as hot as possible and hoist those kettles up on the parapet over the main gate. We’ll need ropes and timbers! Get them to hurry!” Frantic shouting came from the battlement above us, and there was more noise outside as the battering ram slowly made its way toward the gate.
Celia repeated my orders to her men, and they went about their tasks diligently and in a hurry. More firewood was carried from the bailey, and the fires beneath the kettles were stoked again. Several men ran forward carrying timbers on their backs and shoulders that they handed up to those manning the battlement. In short order they had lashed together a small windlass that would work perfectly for our needs.
“Robard! How much farther until they reach the gate?” I shouted up to him.
“Not far! One hundred paces, I’d say. If you have something in mind, you better be quick!”
Everything was in place. I grabbed the rope hanging from the windlass and tied it carefully about the handle of the big iron kettle. When it was secure, the men above us hoisted the kettle slowly upward toward the battlement. One of the villagers on the ground held a long pole that he kept locked against the side of the kettle to keep it from tipping.
“Hurry!” Maryam shouted from her spot on the wall. “They’re almost here!”
The kettle rose a few more feet, and then we all heard and felt a thundering boom against the main gate. The noise was deafening and the walls shook, but the door held. A few seconds later another boom sounded against the door. We were almost in place now as the men above moved the kettle onto the battlement. A small pile of torches had been brought out of the keep, and grabbing one, I laid it to the flame in the fire. When it caught, I raced up the ladder. Running forward, I peered over the wall and saw the ram right beneath us.
The ram thundered against the door again. The door still held. Shouting out orders to the men, we lifted the kettle onto the top of the wall right above the main gate.
“Wait until they roll it forward again!” I shouted over the din.
Down below, we watched as the men pushing the ram backed up, then came forward slowly, then came faster as they strained toward the door. When the iron point was a few feet from the door, I gave the command: “Loose!” I shouted, and the kettle was tipped forward and the hot grease went splashing down on the ram. Some of it splashed over the wooden shielding and onto the men nearby, who screamed and ran away. Carefully measuring the distance, I tossed the torch, which landed on the topmost wooden shield.
At first nothing happened. Then with a loud whoosh, the grease caught and the forward-most part of the ram burst into flames. Several of the men hiding under the shielding lost their nerve at the sight of the fire and ran from their cover.
“Now!” shouted Robard, and the crossbowmen mowed the running men down like wheat before a scythe. Their screams and cries rose up to us in the darkness.
“Get the next kettle ready!” I shouted. “They’ll regroup and the ram will be back!”
As I feared, the wood on the shield covering the battering ram had been coated in mud. As the flames died, I could hear orders being shouted and see men moving toward the ram as it was reinforced.
The attacks came on through the night, but we managed to hold them off until daybreak. The ram was burned and scorched but still operable, and Celia had informed me we’d soon run out of barrels of lard. As the sun poked over the horizon, the fighting halted as the men on the field rested before their next assault.
The four of us met on the wall to take stock of the situation. Far off, near the tree line, I could see Sir Hugh on horseback, watching and directing the activity on the field.
“He won’t give up as long as I’m here,” I said.
My friends said nothing.
“Celia, can you spare us some ropes?” She didn’t look at me for a long time, but simply stared out at the forces arrayed against her. Finally she nodded.
“Oh no. Tristan, I saved you from bandits, you went through a shipwreck and a siege, and now you have a wish to plummet to your death? No wonder the monks who raised you only let you work the garden! If you’d done anything else, I’m sure you would have found a thousand ways to injure yourself and others!” Robard blurted.
I ignored Robard’s jibe. “I think it’s time for us to leave,” I said.