A
Castle Guard
By:
Stephen J. Schlegel
In
Dues were paid to ecclesiastical
estates throughout the land as well. Peasants were required to tithe the
church, and such tithing was enforced by decree of the King.
Peasant life was mostly as farmers.
They were encouraged to marry and most did, but occasionally a tax consisting
of giving the first night of the bride to the lord of the fief or his alternate
was imposed. Custom also allowed the lord to tax a peasant whose daughter had
sinned, though the priests decreed judgment and part of the tax was paid to
them.
The King’s castle was located in
the South, a short trip south and east of
Peasants were included in the
social life of the village, but had no cultural interests. They could not
read, nor would anyone teach them, for they would have been offensive to their
lords, who were almost always illiterate as well. The servants at the
castle were also not more than peasants, but were excluded to a large extent
from the social life of the town outside the castle grounds.
As in peasant’s homes, pigs and fowl
had the run of the castle yards and cottages. Many such animals were
brought in as dues from the lords, fattened at the castle and butchered on the
grounds. The peasants and the servants, however, had good and healthful
food, including vegetables, eggs, dairy products and meat. Despite this,
famines, fevers and poxes were regular causes of multitudes of early
deaths. The same held true at the castle, despite plentiful grain,
produce and meat.
Peasants outside the castle were
greedy, cruel, violent and churlish, since they were poor, fearful, repressed
and derided. They were, however, the mainstay of the Church, despite the fact
they had more superstition than religion.
The castle servants would not and
could not mis-behave like other peasants. Punishment was swift and sure,
and they almost all felt lucky and privileged to be in service, and protected
by the King. Within the castle, however, religion also constituted
a minor, misunderstood substitute for superstition.
Anna worked with her sister Maryja
in the kitchen, cooking for the staff who lived within the castle walls.
One large room served as the kitchen and dining hall for the various
chambermaids, smiths, wash people, gardeners, the gamekeeper and the royal
castle guards. They did not cook, however, for the king, as another kitchen
served the royal chambers exclusively. Their mother was one of the cooks for
the king.
Anna’s mother and sister and she
slept in a room off the smith’s shop near the rear wall of the castle every day
of their lives. The smith’s fires made the quarters warmer than most,
though too hot a few days in summer. Their common bed was straw covered
with course cloth. Goat hides served as covers when needed. It was not
often all three slept in the bed at the same time, as the demands of the
kitchens required rotation of labor.
Anna was rarely permitted to leave
the castle grounds. She relied mostly on the stories of the men she fed for
information of the broader community and countryside. She knew little of the
larger world beyond. Her community was the castle keepers and staff, and
her keeper and god was the King. Men talking of the outside, including of
armies and enemies and battles and others who claimed to be kings was
mysterious and yet of little interest to her.
Castle residents numbered just over
two hundred in these days. Babies were born and fevers caused them to die. Anna
had two other sisters and one brother who she never knew because of their
deaths. Anna’s mother was older than anyone she knew except the
blacksmith. He treated her kindly most of the time.
One night during her 16th
spring three stinking hooded men appeared at Anna’s quarter. They bound, gagged
and hooded her and took her from bed. They knocked her unconscious to stop her
from kicking. She was carried up narrow passages to a chamber high and
far inside the castle. A fourth man was waiting and had his way with her.
She awoke in the yard near the pond. Bleeding and numb, she walked back to her
quarter and bed.
She told no one but her sister what
had occurred. She could remember only the beginning and end.
Two fortnights later it happened
again. That this time was different she did not understand, for she was also
unconscious much of the time. This time she awoke outside the castle
walls and was helped inside by a guard she knew. She told only her sister
again.
Anna was both pregnant and sick the
following winter. She suffered from fevers but still worked in the
kitchen. During the longest night of the year she collapsed on the
floor of the kitchen and began the pain of labor. Her sister sent word to
her mother and took her to her quarter with the aid of the men. The women
had just the aid of each other at these times.
During the middle of labor a snarly
small woman appeared at the quarter. She was a crone who claimed powers of
sorcery. She never appeared except to yell curses, incantations, crude
verses and sometimes to sing.
Showing only the whites of her eyes
she danced around the small dim fire-lit room. She howled and incanted
unintelligible sounds. She called to god or the devil or spirits. She left
dancing in circles as she had arrived.
Anna took her last breath at the
moment the boy took his first.
Maryja called him Daniel. She
cared for him as his mother. She took him with her at all times. He was
nursed on both cow’s and goat’s milk, and fed meal when it came time. Rough
cloth and hides formed his bundling and clothes. The fire’s constant
warmth in the kitchen and quarter helped protect him from fever. The
other women helped Maryja when needed, as she did for them. Most baths came in
the trough near the pond in the yard.
As he grew, he had the company of
other children in the yard as well as the son of another cook in the kitchen
who was two winters older. He was John, and like Daniel, did not know his
father.
By the time of his 4th
summer he worked in the yard. The smith would have him maintain the fire.
The butcher had him chase down a goose or a duck. He learned to corner
the fowl and carry it to the butcher. He especially liked it when the
butcher would ask for a goat or a pig, which he would lead proudly across the
yard like a very big man. He learned early that the animals he brought to
the butcher would be found in the kitchen, added to stew or sometimes be roast.
He was often sent outside the walls
with other young boys to haul foodstuffs and fuel to the castle grounds.
This took place mostly in the late summers and fall, when stores for the winter
were stockpiled inside. The work was hard and long most of the year.
Daniel took to his life in the
castle with curiosity and a degree of glee. Since he saw the people on
the outside at least at the markets, and learned from the butcher, the smith,
the gardener and gamekeeper, his days were filled with learning and challenge.
He kept himself as best he could on the good side of the men in the castle
community. Many were harsh at best, but Daniel developed the skill of
helping the harshest so as to escape their wrath and punishments which they
meted out regularly to the other boys in the yard.
In his 8th summer the
provisimer took him on a hunt with some of the army and some of the outside
men. This was an honor afforded only older boys, and Daniel distinguished
himself by bravely flushing a sow into the waiting spears of the hunting party.
His first hunt lasted three days. He walked proudly with the older men
back into the yard with their game. Maryja and the other cooks laughed at
his size but hugged him and thanked him for being such a good hunter.
They promised and delivered a feast for him and the rest of the party.
He became part of the regular
hunting party for the next four years. The men came to rely on him first
for the stalk, the flush, and then the common kill. Men would talk and joke
after a kill of all manner of things. Daniel felt he was becoming a man.
The castle community was required
by the King to stop at the chapel on the way to their duties and on the way to
their quarters. Occasionally a few of the community were required to
leave the grounds to go to the cathedral and attend masses there. The
priests told them of god and of sin and the devil. Obedience to god and
the priests and the King were essential if they were to remain in the service
and live within the castle walls. According to the priests, God was the father,
the priests in his service and the King divinely permitted to rule.
Maryja simply told Daniel that his
father was god and that the King was his protector.
In his 9th summer, the
King’s knights took him and other young men from the yard and gave them their
first training in arms and in fighting. For weeks at a time the boys
would take soldiers’ orders, and trained in archery and close combat.
Daniel loved the time outside the castle and excelled in all manner of arms.
He became closest friends with
Robert. Robert’s father was the tanner, and his mother worked in the
kitchen with Maryja. They were together a great amount of time. They came
to be a threesome with his first friend John. Both Robert and John were older,
but Daniel grew stronger sooner and they played and hunted and worked together
as equals.
From the time they were very young,
they admired the guards most. They would play in the yard with their makeshift
swords and duel and wrestle. They also played games of hockey and
kickball. As they got older and began their military training, they would
re-enact great imaginary battles whenever they could which was not very often
for they had much to do for the women in the kitchen and the men in the
yard. They loved archery and swordsmanship the most. Neither had the
strength to handle the maul or the mace.
During his 13th winter a
guard woke him and took him to the chamber of the captain of the guard. When he
stepped in he found his friends Robert and John there too. The captain
told them they were no longer to stay in their quarters and would be taken to
the quarter of the guard. They were to be silent until permitted to speak by a
guard. They were not permitted to speak for six fortnights. They did not see
their mothers or Robert’s father, and only left the quarter to leave the
grounds and receive training in the woods and fields from the captain and other
guards. They were to have the status of Knights, but not to serve in the
army. Their sole duty was to protect the King. The guards stayed in
a series of rooms one level above the kitchen. They were small and had
beds the same as Daniel had slept on all his life. Two guards to a bed,
two shifts to a day.
The rules were basic and strict.
They would not leave the service of the guard or the company of at least one
other guard at any time. When in service of the King, there were to be at
least three guards in the presence of the King at all times except when he was
in his sleeping chamber, and then two guards would stand at the interior portal
and three would be at the next outer door. In general, the personal guards were
on half of each day, and rotations came in sets of two at appointed
times. They had been chosen for duty by the King himself on
recommendation from the captain and knight army commanders. Daniel, John and
Robert were three of six of the guard of forty four who had been born to the
castle staff and raised within the castle walls. The others had all come
from the ranks of the army on recommendation of the command and with final
choice being the King on the recommendations of the captain.
Daniel did not know that the King
had asked of him personally. In fact, Daniel had never actually seen the
King. He only knew what he heard from the people in the walls and from
the priests who spoke of the King as ruling by word of god. To him, the King’s
word was God’s word and must be obeyed. Daniel accepted that all of his
life and was proud to be a guard.
They were fitted for and provided
leather breast plates, some light mail, and some light body armor. They
had helmets, and each had a sword, a scabbard, a dirk and a shield. There
actually seemed no set rule as to which guard wore which pieces of armor or
mail. This was determined by time of service and the wish of the eldest
of the guards, in descending order, which eliminated arguments among
them.
Helmets, swords and dirks however
were another matter. Each guard had his own as provided and fitted by the
smith and the procurer. They were to go no where without either, except to eat,
bathe and sleep only in the company of themselves within the guard quarter.
Daniel settled in easily with the
guards. He was taken into confidence of all his new friends.
Discussions in quarters with each of the men began to teach him of life far
outside the castle walls and the organizations of men.
Through the years of his life the
church had required the assembly of large armies of peasants. They were
sent away to do battle with armies of much different men. Taxes had risen but
food became scarce. He spent long hours as one of the guards near the
King. The King had regular meetings with fief holders, barons and lords, and
Daniel learned of the shortage of peasants to farm and raise stock. The
King was heard to be angry at small production and collections and angry that
the peasants blamed him. He wondered aloud when the demands of the church could
be stopped. Staffing the armies the archbishop demanded was causing the King
his most pressing problems.
Sometimes Daniel guarded the King
at services in the Cathedral. There the archbishop and other priests
would give long sermons about the wages of sin, life ever-lasting, of heaven
and hell.
The guards could talk about their
days in quarter only among themselves. They were not permitted to speak
with others in the castle or at all when on duty. Daniel, Robert, John
and the others talked often and long with each other of the problems of the
King. They also came to believe that the Church served
A year into Daniel’s service, the
King and Archbishop held a series of meetings. The meetings took place
both in the King’s royal chambers and in those of the Archbishop in the
Cathedral. Most of the meetings took place in the church. Daniel was
among the guards who heard the discussions and who knew tensions to rise
between the King and the Bishop.
At one of those meetings in the
Bishop’s chambers, he stated directly to the King that which he had announced
in a sermon at mass. He insisted that he would rather be martyred than
not have more men in the ecclesiastical armies. The King told him he had
no more men to give, and the land would revolt. The Archbishop then blasphemed
the King.
Before rage was even felt, Daniel
instinctively turned, stepped towards the Archbishop and plunged his dirk into
his side. He unsheathed his sword exclaiming “your wish will be granted!”
One stroke and the Archbishop collapsed.
Robert and John were on duty the
same time. They and the King stood silently, as Daniel fell to his knees
before him. He quietly began murmuring, “You are my lord and my father,
the protector of all. I am in thy service. Take me quickly or
slowly, but take me I pray. I will never betray you as this unholy man
has. Forgive me, I pray thee, I implore thee to take me as well.”
The King and the other guards
remained silent. Robert first went to the guard outside the chamber door
to summon the captain and to alert the knight’s army. As the Knights arrived,
the King bade John and Robert to take Daniel to quarter, where he was to remain
until further word from the King.
Daniel remained there for the
season. He was fed, but spoke to no one.
Order was maintained in the castle
as usual. Outside the walls the King’s knights maintained order as well. Small
revolts and skirmishes were quelled. No peasants were conscripted to fight on
foreign soil.
One day without warning, the King
summoned Daniel to be brought before him by the guards. Daniel entered the
chamber with his friend Robert and John at his side. The King beckoned
Daniel to come toward him. Daniel stooped and slowly complied. As
he neared the King he again fell to his knees and stretched out his arms on the
floor before him.
He again started his plea, “you are
my lord and my father, the protector....”, but the King stopped him and placed
his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “That shall be all,” said the King.
The King produced a small bag
containing a handful of dirt from a fief. He stooped down and placed it
in Daniel’s right hand. “Now go and serve me if you will. The land needs
production from vassals like you. Keep your name, and treat your peasants
well. I have trust you will serve me well.”
Robert and John lifted Daniel to
his feet. They walked him from the chamber, and down to the sunlit yard.