A KNIGHT NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT LIFE IS LIKE FOR HIS people,” Lord Stephen said. “For the men and women and children living on his manor.”
“Sir William doesn’t care,” I said.
“I do,” Lord Stephen replied. “Sir John does. So does Sir Walter de Verdon. And so will you. Have you been biting your nails?”
“No, sir. Only this thumb.”
“Don’t!” said Lord Stephen sharply. “Now it’s just the same here as at home. We need to understand warfare for all it is.”
“Killing children,” I said bitterly.
“I don’t condone that for one moment,” Lord Stephen said. “What they did was utterly wrong. Depraved. That’s not what we’re here for. But warfare isn’t glorious, Arthur. It’s not only parading on horseback and listening to trumpets. No, it is grim and ugly and vile. Someday you’ll lead others, and may have to make difficult decisions, so it’s essential you know the truth about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s not easy, I know. Not for me either. But we must face up to whatever happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I want you to go over with the miners and help them begin to dig the trenches. Milon agrees. You and Bertie can go together. I know it’s not a knight’s work, and not a squire’s work either, but we must understand.”
There were fourteen of us. Bertie and I and twelve diggers from Provins. Their foreman was Chrétien.
“First things first,” said Chrétien. “These hides and stakes. The tin sheet. All the stuff for the shelter. The sledgehammers. You two, Sir Arthur and Bertie, you link your shields, and hold them over you like a roof. Head for that crucifix hanging on the wall there!” Chrétien clapped his hands. “Come on, then! What are you waiting for?”
The Zarans saw us as we lumbered past the Land Gate and under the high walls. But Wido and Giff and Godard provided us with cover.
I could see they were only hurling head-sized stones, but the moment I heard their torsion rope howling, I felt ill and began to shake.
“Seen a ghost?” yelled Chrétien. “For Christ’s sake, sir, get a move on!”
We hammered the stakes into the hard ground; we stretched the hides over them, and the tin sheet.
“Right!” shouted Chrétien. “Back for the picks and axes and spades. You, Bertie! You and Sir Arthur bring over one of the props. Ready?”
We all made a run for it, but this time the Zarans were waiting for us. They pushed lumps of rock over the wall, and one smacked into the tin sheet. We all got away unscathed, though.
While we were digging a trench at the foot of the wall, Wido and Giff and Godard kept their mangonel busy, but that didn’t stop the Zarans from tipping all kinds of stuff onto us. Stones. Buckets of dung. Bones.
One of the mangonel’s cup-loads fell short. I heard it spitting and cracking against the wall, and then the hide right above me was pierced by the silver-tipped crucifix. Jesus’s nailed feet were dangling beside my right ear.
Chrétien opened his eyes wide and crossed himself, but another man guffawed. “Near thing, sir!” he exclaimed. “Nearly skewered by our Savior!”
I know now what a rabbit trapped in its burrow feels like. Quivering. Helpless. Overhead are humans, shouting and stamping, and stinking ferrets. In a siege like this, there’s no chivalry, no courtesy.
“This’ll take us days,” said Bertie. “The ground’s so hard and dry.”
“Get a move on, then!” Chrétien snapped.
“Have we got to dig right under this wall?” Bertie said.
“And then up again?” I asked.
“Not up again!” said Chrétien. “Just far enough to bring the whole thing down.”
“What? On us?” Bertie exclaimed.
“That’s the trick, boy,” said another miner. “That’s what the props are for.”
“The wall starts to move,” said Chrétien. “It sags a bit. It sinks.”
“And you put the props in,” Bertie said.
“Got it!” said Chrétien. “Then you dig a bit more. That’s what the Angevins are doing down there. And beyond them, the Gascons.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Fire!” Chrétien said. “We build a fire beside the props and scarper. You’ll see.”
The men showed us little respect. They told Bertie and me we were lily-livered and scrawny chickens and they complained we kept getting in their way. But all the same, they were quite friendly.
When it was quiet overhead, Chrétien told two men, Gaston and Giscard, to remove some of the rocks and bones and stuff from the sagging hides.
No sooner had they started than Giscard was hit on the head by a huge block of dressed stone. We hauled him back under our shelter, feet first, but the top of his skull was completely crushed. One moment he was alive, the next dead. Stone dead.
Four of the miners picked him up and, leaving our picks and axes and spades behind, we hurried back to the other side of the channel. We laid out Giscard’s body beside the mangonel.
“Poor sod!” said Chrétien. “Who’s going to dig the grave?”
No one replied, and Chrétien nodded at Bertie and me.
“Where?” asked Bertie.
“Holy ground,” I said.
“Wherever Giscard lies will be holy ground,” Chrétien growled. “Any man who falls in a siege will find a place in heaven.” He stared at Giscard’s mangled skull and scuffed the ground. “Poor sod!” he said again. “If we’d had that cat…”
“What’s that?” Bertie asked.
“A shelter,” said Chrétien. “On wheels. It creeps up to the walls, and it’s got a roof with a steep pitch so nothing can lie on it. The Normans are building them but they took too long. If we’d had that cat…”
“Did you know Giscard before?” I asked.
“All my life,” said Chrétien. “And his wife. Six children, and another in the oven.”
Five days have passed since I wrote about Giscard and digging under the wall, and each day Lord Stephen and Milon have given Bertie and me new duties. One day I helped the Norman carpenters build the cats—they call them sows—but Bertie actually had to help saw lengths of wood; one day we rowed round to the western side of Zara, and Bertie had to take an oar, and we both helped the Venetian sailors stretch long ladders from the docked ships onto the city walls while the Zarans hooted and tried to stop us by pouring hot oil and steaming water over us; and one day I had to work with Turold, checking all the nails in our armor, and polishing it, but Bertie’s job was worse: He had to pull out all the stinking fustian pads and clean the inside of each piece.
This afternoon, the same three Zaran councillors who came to see the Doge on the day we disembarked rode out through the Land Gate again. They were unarmed, and each was holding up a large crucifix.
They rode straight to the Doge’s camp and offered to surrender the city and everything in it on exactly the same terms as before.
“Well,” said Lord Stephen, “he can scarcely do less than spare their lives.”
“He can,” said Sir William.
Lord Stephen’s mouth twitched. “Not with any honor,” he said.
“You shall not leave any creature alive,” Sir William rasped. “You shall annihilate them. The Book of Deuteronomy.”
“The Zarans are Christians, and sparing life is the least the Doge can do,” Lord Stephen insisted. “Otherwise the Pope will never forgive him.”
“If that’s all they’re asking, they’ve got no bargaining power.”
“Couldn’t they provide men for the crusade?” I asked.
“They will!” replied Sir William. “The Doge will see to that.”
“So what have the Zarans got out of all this?” Lord Stephen asked.
“They’re in deep water,” Sir William said darkly. “The Doge is extremely angry. They’ve held out against him for twenty years.”
“What did I say?” Lord Stephen asked.
“You always know best!” Sir William barked.
Lord Stephen drew himself up like an offended peacock, but the top of his head still only comes up just above my shoulders.
“I said Count Simon’s—”
“Treachery!” barked Sir William.
“…Count Simon’s action would not have the effect he supposed. He wanted to stop Christians from fighting Christians. But look what has happened!”
Sir William sniffed.
Lord Stephen wagged his right forefinger. “They’ve caused exactly what they tried to prevent,” he said.