L

Next day, I worked with the Marshal to put the castle into a state of defence. The cook was sent into the town to buy extra stores and the assistant-steward rode round the castle’s farms collecting pigs and cattle. Inevitably, news travelled swiftly around the town that the castle was preparing for a siege.

A siege always alarmed the townsfolk because the visiting army would raid it for subsistence and there was always the chance that a raid would spin off into looting, rape, arbitrary punishments, and arson. I don’t say it made the town hostile to us, but it tended to encourage them to hedge their bets.

Breteuil was at a crossroads where the road from Paris to the west crossed the route from the south, from Poitou and Anjou. There was passing trade and regular trade and money to be made from local lace and livestock.

A smokery had been set up in town at the instigation of Juliana, adding to the brewery, lacery, apothecary, tannery, bakeries, butchers and tallow-makers. There were five inns and a brothel. Wars and fighting spoilt the serious business of making money. I noticed little groups of burghers in the streets and marketplace, nervous but purposeful. In one group was the mayor, a fussy little man, but not without his following.

‘We shall have to let them in,’ I heard him say.

I didn’t blame him. The town walls and gates were strong enough to keep out brigands and bogeymen, but it was only a strong castle that could hold out against a determined siege for long. I relayed the general drift of conversation back to the Marshal as we walked together round the bailey

‘The Duke will use the town and the town will use the Duke. No doubt they will wring some concession out of him,’ he said. ‘We will fare better inside the castle itself, once the drawbridge has been pulled up. The moat is deep – all this water around here has its purposes.’

The shambles in a deep pit at the back of the bailey, downwind of the castle, was full of the residue of beasts – slaughtered, sliced and brined. It was shortly to be covered with earth; meanwhile, it smelt of death. There would be more of that shortly. We both held our breath for a few paces as we passed.

‘My guess is, as the Comtesse said, that the Duke will want to do as little damage as possible,’ he said. ‘Not out of kindness, but because he wants the place for himself. We can use that to our advantage. Once he finds the drawbridge up, he will want to parley. He won’t want to get too close to my lady unless he can find some way to overcome her, some secret stratagem…’

We paused in our circuit at the graves of the two little girls.

‘They were the brave ones,’ he said. ‘I wish we had them fighting for us.’

‘Perhaps they will be in their way,’ I replied. ‘Whatever the Duke may say, their treatment must weigh heavily on their grandfather.’