Medieval Information

At nine o'clock, the quotidian bell rang. Everyone was already awake before this happened, but still it reminded us the time. Everyone was admiring the spectacle of many lined-up trebuchets firing at us; except the guards, of course, who were making a barricade in the door because of the serious damage done to our front gate. We were all asked to donate our furniture to this cause; beds, roofs and all the wood we could find.

Our castle was very big. Not many other castles had a well and farming land in the inside; this was a relief for everyone. Pierre, the giant who I described earlier, was sent to watch the food supplies. There was a strong belief that a spy could be among us. As all of us knew, the king was very strict in a spy's way of dying. He would be sent to an oubliette to starve to death. This was the worst way of dying in my opinion.

When it was 12 o'clock, the bell rang again to tell us of our daily meal. I was shocked to see that my ration only consisted of bread and water! I finished it in a few seconds and I was still very hungry.

"Welcome to the castle's life" said Pierre.

"But I'm hungry... "

"There's nothing I can do... lets go back to our room; you need to start learning how to fight. I'll teach you what you need to know in the morning."

I was 14 years old; the kingdom of France was very strict about making us learn to fight at that age. Normally, I would be assigned a random tutor, but by the looks of it, Pierre was going to be it. As we walked to our room, a gigantic projectile destroyed much of the main gate; the bell rang again. The guards were yelling "everyone able to fight must go to the main gate at once" At least a thousand soldiers were lined-up in there a few minutes after; including Pierre.

When I told Pierre that I wanted to go, he ordered me to back off. I said:

"I'm a very good archer, I know what to do."

"Then you'll help the other archers from inside the wall."

"Please let me come with you."

"It's too dangerous."

The English invaders were using a battering ram to destroy our gate. It was having a very dramatic effect in destroying it; even though our castle consisted of three lines of defense, we couldn't afford letting them possess the first one since the farming land was in there. Their advance would mean our loss.

I did what Pierre said and went to the upper wall. A soldier next to me started saying something.

"Do you know how to fire one of these?"

"I'm an expert archer, I used to help my father hunt beasts for a living"

"Do you have a bow?"

"No... I left it in my old hut which is now over there"

[I pointed towards some ashes]

"So is your family dead?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but we have no time to lose. You can have this bow, it was my old one."

"Get ready, here they come"

As he uttered these last words, an army of more men that I could count, ran towards the quasi-destroyed gates. We lit fire to our arrows; and as our commander ordered us to fire, a thousand arrows were shot towards the interlopers. Many men died, and we kept firing. I could count killing at least a dozen invaders.

Our missiles were not enough. They managed to utterly destroy the gates, making a wide enough hole to infiltrate our castle. I could hear the uproar coming from beneath the stairs when our commander shut the door leading to our part of the wall. A few moments after he did so, more than twenty angry soldiers were standing beneath the closed door. We were able to fire them since the implantation of "death traps" as they called them. They consisted on making holes in the walls to kill enemies as they entered.

A fearsome melee occurred as the invaders reached the inside. We kept firing the invaders but they were too dispersed so we didn't do much damage this time. The interlopers retreated leaving hundreds of their soldiers behind. We were victorious in this small battle. Our lord wanted to make a counterattack, but he was told not to because it could have been a trap. In my opinion, they were severely demoralized.

I ran to the gates; to my dismay, Pierre was injured. An arrow crossed his leg from one side to the other; I knew that his chances of developing an infection were very high. He was sent to the infirmary immediately. There was a tremendous fear, greater than before, of having spies among us. Spies seriously threatened our chances of survival since they could easily poison our food. Many more soldiers were appointed to guard the kitchen.

I was very tired so I walked towards my bed, only to hear a second attempt of invaders coming to our castle. I was too tired to care or notice so I went to bed anyways.