The Last Siege Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Maps

  Skirmishes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Capture

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Occupation

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Discord

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  First Sighting

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Siege

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  Also by Jonathan Stroud

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A chance encounter on the snowy slopes of a castle moat throws together three lonely teenagers: Emily, Simon and the enigmatic Marcus.

  Spurred on by Marcus, the three break in to the ruined castle, spending a night there to experience the power of occupation. But there re-enactment spirals out of control and a very real siege ensues, becoming a frenzy of nightmarish action and dark, psychological games.

  THE LAST SIEGE

  JONATHAN STROUD

  For Eli and Matt

  Skirmishes

  {1}

  Emily’s first crime was a small one caused by snow.

  Roots tripped her; her boots plunged into drifts. Tiny powder avalanches cascaded coldly onto her hat, brow and shoulders. Little by little, she squeezed herself through the gap in the thick hedge, the snow-covered twigs butting and scraping against her anorak. Flakes landed on her eyelids and made her blink. Behind her, the sledge caught against something. She yanked viciously at the cord and felt it bump itself free.

  With another step she was standing in the castle grounds, her heart beating fast, her eyes peeled for danger. So far, so good. There was no one in sight.

  She was up to her knees in a low drift that had built up inside the hedge. Away to the right, a straggling flock of birds flew in the grey sky above the wood, while the far hedge was a charcoal line drawn unevenly against the whiteness. All the small dips of Castle Field had been smoothed away by the snow, but a deep shadow beyond marked the great curve of the moat ditch. A few patches of broken wall leant out drunkenly from the moat’s raised inner lip.

  In the background the body of the keep itself rose like a black slab.

  Turning, Emily hauled on the cord. Abruptly the sledge jerked into view, only to jam again behind the final mess of stems and tangled thorn. She bent down and pulled the yellow plastic, twisting it so that it came clear. Then she guided it out of the hedge and let it fall onto the drift.

  She listened. Echoing laughter came from the direction of the moat, muffled by distance and the blanketing snow. Good, others were trespassing too and no one had come to catch them. It was going to be all right.

  She set off across the field, each stride flaking her legs with white. The cold prickled through her jeans. Later it might become damp and chafing, but now it invigorated her. Every step helped freeze away the indoor stuffiness of the last few days.

  She went down into a slight dip. Now she could no longer see the keep, just part of the outer wall, grey, crested with ice. The sky was heavy with the next snow. Her breath rose in ragged bursts of cloud.

  The voices came from the steepest part of the moat and Emily slowly made her way towards them. It all depended on who it was. Karen had said she might go sometime that week and Emily quite liked Karen. If she was there, Emily would stay. If not . . .

  A group of people clambered from the moat, dragging a small red sledge. Two girls and four boys – all slipping and swearing and breathing hard. Their clothes were half-caked with snow. Karen was not among them.

  When all were at the top, three of the boys immediately began to push each other playfully at the edge of the moat. They uttered loud cries as they wrestled, hoping to gain the attention of the girls, who ignored them completely as they watched the fourth (and biggest) boy putting the sledge in position. One girl flopped onto the sledge, the other squeezed awkwardly on behind and the biggest boy flung himself across the front girl’s lap to a chorus of delighted shrieks and groans. The sledge inched slowly down the slope, braked almost to a standstill by a mess of protruding legs and arms. All at once the boy and the girl at the front tumbled off and the remaining rider shot down the rest of the way, whooping with terror, until she went headfirst into a drift at the bottom. The other boys had been wrestling with less enthusiasm; they now broke off and began laughing enviously at the biggest boy, who was lying on top of the girl halfway down the slope.

  Deirdre Pollard, Katie Fern, the Allen brothers. Emily curled her lip and turned away. She would sledge on her own. Deirdre and Katie were stupid and the Allens had a bad reputation. Only the youngest, Simon, was still at school; the others hung about the village, aggressively doing nothing. Martin Allen, the eldest, had been the most aggressive of all, but he hadn’t been seen for a while. Emily had heard he was in prison.

  When she had got a good way from the group, she stopped, positioned her sledge on the top of the slope and sat. Below her was a steep chute of white treachery, all its rocks and holes cloaked from sight. Emily paused, clenched her teeth and pushed off.

  A spray of sleet, a funnel of cold air, a juddering whirl of whiteness. Then she was levelling out and coming to rest against the bottom of the opposite slope, her body jerking forward, her outstretched boots scrunching into the snow.

  Standstill. It had taken all of three seconds.

  Emily sat there catching her breath, grinning with the adrenaline.

  Then something hit her in the face.

  It snapped her head to one side, ripping out a gasp as the thin cold pain tore across her cheek. The suddenness confused her. She knew it was a snowball, but it felt like the blow of a fist.

  Loud laughter. Something else whistled in front of her face. Another missile hit her leg, shattering snow shards into her eyes.

  Emily struggled to her feet, tripping over the sledge cord, half-blinded with tears from the impact. As if through wet glass, she saw her attackers a little way off along the bottom of the moat. Snowballs scudded through the air; a couple struck her chest and stomach. She bent for the cord, turned and started to stumble away through the drifts.

  She skidded, almost fell, righted herself – then there was a tremendous clout on the back of her head, her hat fell off in a shower of ice particles and she knew she was about to cry.

  She ran on, leaving the hat behind. It was impossible to go fast – the snow was too deep – but slowly the fusillade thinned and the jeers grew fainter. Another missile hit her on the leg, another shot past her ear, then the attack ceased.

  Emily continued along the bottom of the moat, crying a little with misery and rage. At last she risked a look behind her, and saw that the curve of the slope had carried her out of view.

  She slowed to a trudge. On either side the slope was too steep to climb, but she knew if she continued she would come to the place where steps cut in the grass led up to the bridge. Then she could make her way back to the hedge and go home.

  A fragment of the outer wall rose from the snow at the top of the right-hand bank. Emily wished she could push it down on the fools who had attacked her. She had stopped crying now and was kicking the snow savagely with every step. Katie Fern, Deirdre Pollard – she’d get back at them, see if she wouldn’t. But there was nothing she could ever do about the boys – they were just too big, even that gormless Simon.

  She hated them! She hated the whole village! Everyone there was stupid and brainless and she was always left on her own with nothing to do
. Sledging was the only possible way to stave off the Christmas boredom – and now she was getting beaten up for doing it! She couldn’t go anywhere else either. For twenty miles in all directions the land was flat – an endless boring tablecloth of grey-white fields, scored with ice-choked ditches, runs and rivulets. Mud and water everywhere and not a slope in sight. The castle moat was the only place to take your sledge and now she was being driven away from it, back to her dull house, her dull parents –

  She was so caught up in her fury and despair that she failed to see the figure before she was almost upon him. A sudden movement made her look up. A boy she did not know was standing ahead of her at the bottom of the moat.

  He looked a little older than her, fifteen or so, thin, with a mop of black hair protruding from all sides of a dark-blue bobble-hat. A blue anorak protected him from the cold, but he also wore trainers, which Emily knew must be soaked right through. And he had no gloves. He was scraping up snowballs, compacting them hard with his bare hands and throwing them up at the ruined wall on the top of the rise. Each ball hit against the stonework or vanished with a slight sound into the snow at its base. There was no one standing on the wall that Emily could see. The boy was alone.

  Emily stood watching him. He made no sign that he had seen her, but stooped to gather up another handful of snow. He threw it, as hard as he could, then made a little noise of disapproval as it spattered into the top of the slope.

  His hands were red with cold.

  ‘You’re trying to get them over the top?’ Emily asked.

  The boy did not turn to look at her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s very high.’

  ‘I’ve done it once, but my arms are getting tired now.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop, then?’

  The boy didn’t answer, but packed another snowball between his freezing fingers and threw. It plopped half-heartedly midway up the slope.

  ‘I’d stop if I were you,’ Emily said.

  ‘What I need is a siege engine,’ declared the boy, brushing his hands on his front and stuffing them into his coat pockets. ‘You know, a massive catapult. I could do it from miles off then.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Chuck rocks onto the defenders. Or burning lumps of pitch to set the place on fire. That would be the best way of doing it.’

  Emily looked at the boy. He had a longish, serious face, with pale skin and dark eyes that flicked rapidly back and forth between her and the wall above.

  ‘I thought castles were made of stone,’ she pointed out helpfully. ‘Fire wouldn’t do anything.’

  ‘A lot of the outbuildings were wooden,’ the boy replied. ‘But yeah, you’re right. Fire wouldn’t do much apart from fry a few defenders. Of course,’ he went on, ‘the other option would be heads.’

  ‘Heads?’

  ‘Of the enemy. Soldiers killed in forays, or local villagers. We’d chop off their heads and lob them back over the wall so that they rained down on their families and friends. Psychological warfare.’

  ‘I’d stick to snowballs,’ Emily said.

  There was a silence. ‘You from round here then?’ the boy asked finally.

  ‘From the village. You?’

  ‘I cycled from King’s Lynn. Only took me half an hour.’

  ‘Where’s your bike, then?’

  ‘I left it in the dip by the hedge.’

  ‘Oh.’ This seemed to have exhausted the conversation. Emily could see the steps leading out of the moat up ahead. She started off.

  ‘Don’t you like castles?’ the boy said suddenly.

  ‘Yes, but right now I’m cold. I need to move about.’

  ‘They’re the best. Each one’s different. They had to keep changing their ideas, you see, because of all the military developments. This one’s an early one, of course.’

  ‘Is it?’ Emily shifted from one foot to the other, but it seemed rude to walk off while the boy was waffling.

  ‘You can tell that ’cos of the keep. Later on they didn’t bother with keeps. They were strong, but much too cramped. And if they had square corners, they were always getting undermined. You know, tunnelling.’

  ‘This one hasn’t been,’ Emily said, feeling a certain local pride.

  ‘I know. Look at these outer walls though. Someone’s blown them to pieces. Who did it?’ He asked the question directly, expecting an answer.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Oh.’ The boy said this in a disappointed way that slightly annoyed Emily. ‘Some of these armies had great siege engines,’ he went on. ‘But you don’t always need to destroy the walls. You know the Mongols? They were besieging some Christian castle. In Turkey, I think. Couldn’t get in. So do you know what they did?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They got some bodies of Mongol soldiers who’d died of plague. Black boils all over them. Waited till they were really festering, ready to pop – ’

  He paused for a second, as if hoping Emily would say something. She didn’t.

  ‘ – then they catapulted the bodies over the walls into the city. Pretty soon the defenders started to get poxy themselves. The plague spread and they were trapped in with it. Couldn’t escape. Most of them died. Then the Mongols went off. They hadn’t got inside the castle, but why should they care? They’d got their horrible revenge!’

  ‘That’s foul.’ Emily screwed up her face to prove it. She was impressed. The boy grinned.

  ‘And when the Christian survivors went back to Europe, they brought the plague with them. That’s how it got here. Spread everywhere. All because of siege warfare.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Read it somewhere.’ He lobbed another snowball. It arced lazily into the snow. ‘Don’t you read?’

  ‘Yeah, but not that sort of stuff.’

  ‘You’ve just got to look out for it. I’ve a good memory for that kind of thing.’

  Emily shrugged. The wind had picked up, and even at the bottom of the sheltered moat she could feel it cutting through her clothes. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I’m going home. We shouldn’t be here anyway.’

  ‘That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?’ The boy appraised her with a quick look. ‘Listen, before you go, why don’t you chuck around some snowballs with me? You’ll warm up then. You can be the defender. Or the attacker, if you want, though defending will be easier. You can be up there, by that hole.’

  ‘No thanks. I’ve had enough of snowballs for one day.’

  The boy looked crestfallen. ‘Suit yourself. Bet it would be good fun though. You could chuck down boiling oil on me – you know, scoop up great handfuls of snow and just chuck it! If I was caught in it you’d win. Then we’d swap.’

  Emily considered. She really didn’t want another snowball fight, but despite herself the boy’s enthusiasm was catching. It seemed a better option than slinking away on her own. Besides, pelting him with snow was a good opportunity to let off some of her pent-up rage.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Marcus. Yours?’

  ‘Em. So, how am I going to get up then?’

  The boy’s face brightened. ‘Great! Yeah, it’s a bit steep here, but there are some steps a bit further along. That’s how I got down.’

  Emily frowned. ‘I’m not trekking all that way. I’ll climb it.’

  But Emily had hardly started up the slope when she heard footsteps crunching the snow behind her. She dropped back down and looked. A boy was approaching along the bottom of the moat.

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. It was Simon Allen and he was carrying her hat.

  She turned to face him, glaring stonily, arms rigid at her side. The boy was red-faced and discomforted. He came to a halt in front of Emily and stood there, gazing fixedly at an unexciting patch of snow by her feet. Emily said nothing. She could see Marcus looking from one of them to the other and back again.

  Simon Allen held out the hat. Emily stepped forwards and took it, almost snatching it out of his hands. She didn�
��t put it on, but returned her arms to her sides and forced herself to look at the boy’s face.

  Like his brothers he was big-framed, almost as tall as a man, though he was only in the year above Emily. Unlike his brothers, he had not yet gained too much weight – he was still quite slim and his arms and legs seemed slightly gawky, a little too long for him. He had sandy hair cut short all over, a red, freckled face and blue eyes. At this moment his mouth was hanging open a little as he struggled for something to say. Emily waited, looking at him.

  At last the mouth opened decisively. ‘I found it,’ he said. ‘I – I thought it was your hat.’

  ‘It is my hat,’ Emily said. ‘That’s why I took it. I don’t steal things.’ She paused deliberately. ‘Unlike some people.’

  The boy flushed and clenched his fists. ‘Meaning what?’

  Emily grinned. ‘Didn’t see your big brother with you just now. Enjoying Christmas, is he?’

  ‘You cow – you take that back!’

  ‘Get lost.’

  Simon Allen made a move forward. Emily sneered at him, though her heart jolted with fear. ‘That’s right. Beat up a girl. Twice in one morning’s good going.’

  The boy stopped still, his mouth twisted with fury. ‘Listen, you bloody cow,’ he said, ‘I came to find you, to say sorry and give you your hat – ’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Say sorry, you berk.’

  ‘I – I . . .’ The boy seemed torn between perplexed confusion and inarticulate wrath. As he stood there spluttering, Marcus said, ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Threw snowballs at me. They really hurt.’

  Simon Allen looked up. ‘I didn’t throw any. It was the others.’

  ‘Oh right, like you didn’t.’

  ‘I bloody didn’t! Well, I threw one, but it missed. It was Carl who hit you most.’

  ‘So you’re a lousy shot. That makes all the difference.’

  ‘Look,’ said Marcus, interrupting just as Simon was about to explode with fury, ‘I’ve got a suggestion. Why doesn’t he apologize and you accept it and then both of you just shut up? Then we can have a fair fight. Like we were going to, but with two attackers – I reckon the defender’s got it easy else. Two attackers would balance things out. What about him defending and you and me attacking? That would be fairer. Then you both get a chance to pelt each other’s brains out anyway.’