CHAPTER 6 – THE FINAL ASSAULT

Tidings of the terrible battle at Mantryble Bridge came quickly to Admiral Balan at Aygremore; that Galafer was slain, the city lost, his treasuries sacked, and that Richard of Normandy, who had been his captive, now rode in the vanguard of the victorious French. His face grew very still at first, then began to flush. First red, then purple, and finally black.

“Nnnoooooo!!”

Leaping to his feet, he raised his throne over his head, broke it to bits on the marble floor, and clutched the largest piece like a makeshift club. With this he brained the unfortunate messenger. Then he ran to the wall that sheltered his heathen idols. Weeping and screaming curses, he smashed the figure of Mahon in the face.

“Traitor god, your power is nothing! Only a fool would trust you after seeing my men slain and my treasures taken. You are nothing. Nothing!” The club crashed down again and again until the image toppled to the ground.

King Sortibrant hurried forward. “Sire, you must repent of this deed and make your amends to the god. He has a long memory for slights.”

“Never! How could I bow my head to Mahon when he failed to protect my city and gold?”

“Whatsoever your opinion of the gods,” said the more practical King Brullant, who had slipped up to join the two, “let us send out spies to find whether and when the host of Charles comes hither against you. If it does, we must summon your other vassals. Together, I still believe we can take him captive and hang him by the neck with his people.

“The gods guard those who guard themselves,” he finished.

“So it is said,” admitted Sortibrant, “but if your Highness will apologize too, and bring the gods behind our effort, perhaps we can also capture Fierabras, your son, so you may smite off his head and deal at your leisure with your daughter and the scoundrels who hold your Tower.”

This image greatly cheered the Admiral. He returned to Mahon, righted the statue and humbly abased himself as Sortibrant desired. “As amends I shall increase thy worship in all lands and have made for thee a new form from a thousandweight of fine gold. And too,” he added, “before the Emperor Charles can arrive you shall have my false daughter and her friends from the Tower as well.”

“Summon the engines,” he said to his kings, “we attack as soon as possible.”

*  *  *

The assault began an hour later, more fervent than ever. The Saracen engines hurled gigantic stones against the Tower walls. Before long they’d made five new holes, through the least of which a cart could have passed with ease. When the engines withdrew, the army moved in to exploit the ruined defense.

Oliver and Roland watched from a high window, their shields in front to ward off darts. Nervous fingers opened and closed on their sword hilts. Even those mighty hearts felt pangs of fear at the sight of so great an oncoming hoard. They and the others hurled down every stone and other missile they could find, but their efforts did no more damage to that ocean of men than the same might have done to the sea.

“My lords and brethren,” said Roland, “now is the time to show our mettle. With heart, courage and discipline we may yet survive the day.”

“Nay,” said Oliver, “more than survive! Look, my brother. They have all come afoot, seeing that the holes in our walls need ladders to reach. We ten have been confined too long. Let us sally forth beneath them, as knights on horse, and see how they deal with that! I would rather die outside and be hewn from the saddle than be penned in here and cornered like some honorless beast.”

Ogier the Dane instantly agreed with this plan, as did the others. Even Floripas encouraged their adventure. “Go, my lords, and do your desire well. Our doors and wards will hold long enough against any who stray inside for you to finish the work without.”

Greatly cheered by her words, the knights ran down the last remaining staircase (the others had been destroyed for the sake of defense) and readied their eager mounts.

The leading edge of the Saracen army crested at the Tower’s foot and began to force its way up the walls by sheer strength. Men climbed by hand where they could and swarmed up dozens of ladders, which rose like stalks of grass in a breeze, when hands wouldn’t do. Floripas went to the high window and shook her fist defiantly at her father. “I might have known you’d need help to fight a woman!”

“Whore!” he screamed. “Putayne! He that brings me her head shall have my entire love and honor!”

The Saracen troops roared with eagerness and pushed up the ladders even faster. Then the Tower doors opened and death rode out from beneath.

The shock could not have been more profound. In one instant the Saracens were whooping with joy and lust; the next they went toppling to their deaths, or stood on foot against mounted fiends. Helpless with terror, they turned their tails and fled. The Tower was completely forgotten.

The French rampaged freely, lopping off heads like a boy lops flowers in a field, until the sun was low in the sky.

*  *  *

Fury at the Paladins’ defiance ate at the Admiral’s heart, but with Charlemagne’s army on the march he swore to press the assault regardless of cost. The French knights could guess this intent easily enough from the frothing screams that echoed through the dark. They accordingly worked at a feverish pace to patch where the walls had been holed the day before.

It did them little good. By noon the Saracen engines had reduced most of the Tower’s front side to shattered ruins.

Under King Brullant’s command, the day’s attack had moderately less enthusiasm but considerably more order and purpose. Slowly, carefully, in tight formations, the Saracens pressed on over the rubble. The steady chant of their pagan hymns sent shivers through the French, who could do nothing but watch with a mixture of fear and frustration. “Ma-HON, Ma-HON.” “Ter-ma-GENT, Ter-ma-GENT.”

Floripas interrupted the gloom with a sudden cry of delight. She leapt to her feet and excitedly said, “My lords, we forget the chamber that holds my father’s gods! The coin may be gone, but there are other things to throw.”

Ogier’s grin matched her own. “I know just where to start.”

The knights ran in to the Tower’s depths while Floripas strolled to the window. Once again she leaned out and caroled taunts on her father’s head. He erupted as if her voice was a white-hot prod.

“You are no daughter of mine, whore! When I finally take these wretched French you shall burn at their side!”

Brullant ignored them both and kept the advance moving forward. But he began to feel uneasy.

Floripas called back, “Better to burn with noble trees than live with the muck and weeds. You were never my father. No mother of mine would have stooped so low!”

“Archers!” screamed the Admiral. “A bag of gold for the man who kills the whore!”

Brullant ground his teeth as men abandoned his careful formations for clearer shots. A quivering hail of bolts and arrows soared upward as Floripas ducked inside. She’d done what she could to buy some time. It wouldn’t work again.

It took Brullant several precious minutes to regain control, even after the lady disappeared. Leaving a token force of fifty archers with her obsessed father, he whipped the other soldiers back into formation and started them marching again. “Ma-HON, Ma-HON.” “Ter-ma-GENT, Ter-ma-GENT.”

By this time the knights were staggering back from the Admiral’s treasure room. Floripas’ eyes widened when she saw how Ogier had “improved” her idea. “I always say,” he grunted, “that Heaven hears even a heathen’s prayers.”

He came to the window and called in a loud voice, “You want your gods? Here!”

With a mighty effort he heaved the treasury’s massive statue of Termagent over the sill. Roland followed with the idol of Mahon, Oliver with Margotte, and the others with as many bricks of gold and silver as they’d been able to carry.

The three figures hurtled down and exploded on the boulders-strewn remains of the strong Tower walls. Fragments of gold and gems flew like bullets. Dozens of men fell dead or screaming in pain. The others stared in horror at the head of Mahon, severed from its body with one eye socket empty and the other staring lifeless and crazed.

When other gods began falling from the sky, the formations shivered like aspens in the breeze. One by one, the knights hauled them up and hurled them over the sill.

The end came when a brick of gold smashed Mahon’s head like a grape beneath some mighty fist. Shrieking with superstitious terror, the heathen army scattered and ran once again.

*  *  *

This time the Admiral waxed so wroth that he swooned from sheer vexation. Brullant and Sortibrant had to carry him back to his tent on a litter, where he lay as if dead for more than an hour.

At last he stirred with a moan. “I am forsaken; failed by my gods at my greatest need. Mahon, you are old and a dotard, no fit god for any man.”

“Sire,” said Sortibrant, “it is an evil habit to speak ill of the gods. Mahon was angry with you for striking him on the nose with your club. Now, seeing what these Frenchmen have done, he will surely turn his anger on them.”

“And there is this,” added Brullant practically. “Gods or no gods, the Tower is empty of all they might throw. The enemy has nothing left but his swords, and howsoever puissant they may be, we have ten thousand blades for every one of theirs. Let us go forward again and press them. Press them, I say, by day and by night, so they may neither sleep nor refresh themselves until they are taken and bound before you! If we trust in ourselves the gods will surely follow.”

Sortibrant spared him a look of reproach. “It is in Mahon we must trust and no other. Still, your advice is as good as ever. Sire, let us follow my brother’s plan. Charles will be upon us soon. The heads of his knights would make an apt greeting.”

“Let it be so,” said the Admiral.

*  *  *

The assault began that evening, by torchlight. The first Saracens to reach the Tower met Roland and Oliver in the breach. They died. So did the wave that followed. But bit by bit the mass came on nevertheless.

The Paladins fought for every inch of hall and stair. With careful forethought they’d blocked off the rooms and ways that could have been used to go around, and erected various pillars and bars to prevent the enemy from using a table or other large shield as cover for the advance. Other barriers guarded against missiles from below. But nothing could change the weight of numbers. And nothing could grant the defenders a rest.

By sunrise the knights had been pushed almost halfway up the Tower. Then word came from the ladies above: “Twenty thousand Turks come from the city to replace the men who fought in the night.”

The Peers slumped tiredly behind a heavy door, wincing as much at the news at they did at the steady Thump! of the heathens’ ram.

Duke Naymon, his white beard stained with blood and quivering with exhaustion, said quietly, “Old men are ready for death. It is you youngsters for whom I mourn.”

“Mourn not for me, your Grace,” said Ogier the Dane. “If I am to die it will be as a knight, with faithful heart and honor unstained. No treason or cowardice shall you have from me, my brothers. When I go, my sword Cortana shall be in my hand, and the heap of pagan dead shall be so high that men will marvel forever!”

Cries of ‘Huzzah!’ and ‘Vivat!’ rang through the chamber. Roland brandished Durandal, Oliver Hautclere, and each of the others his sword as well. Then the door flew suddenly inward as the ram drove it free from its hinges.

“Charles and honor!” cried Roland, leaping forward with a joyous laugh. He batted aside a spear, ducked beneath an axe and was suddenly there, a whirl of death in the enemy’s midst. Durandal glittered wetly as he danced – as they danced – knight and sword, together and one. The first man had barely fallen when the last choked out his life.

Roland shook the blade free of gore and slowly caught the eye of a Saracen at the end of the hall. He grinned.

The soldier shrieked, dropped his spear and bolted around a corner into the advancing troop of Turks. Roland pursued with the other Peers at his heels.

Naymon, at the rear, caught Duke Thierry by the arm. “Nineteen men,” he counted. “Nineteen men, armed and ready, and they never had a chance. Sometimes it seems that God himself could envy that man’s arm. Come! Let us see if he’s left any for us!”

Laughing and greatly cheered, the two knights barreled down the hall.

*  *  *

Even heroism has its limits, however. In that charge the knights regained a floor of the Tower and cleared a stair they’d lost, but the day wore on without relief. By noon the Saracens had hurled them back through the room and another wave of fresh, rested troops had struck down William the Scot with a grievous wound that made him unable to fight. The rest of the day passed likewise. Not a man of the French but did his desire greatly. Every one proved his worth again and again in the long retreat. But a retreat it was nevertheless.

The sun was low and the knights backed up to the final stair when a wordless shout came from the room above.

“That’s Floripas!”

Duke Naymon bounded up the stairs and then called back to the others, “St. Denis! The flag of St. Denis has topped the hill!”

Charlemagne had arrived.