Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
Then those of the Castle sat down there to wait until Richard Bek, the
captain of the White Tower, should surrender, so that they might take
the gold. But that was a long matter. For Richard Bek and his men had
at their command a great store of the best commodities that had belonged
to the late lord. He had stored them in that strong place that was made
for it. Sugar even they had and pepper and pippins, and the best wine
and figs in honey. They of the Castle had not even fish for Fridays or
none but salted cod. But they could see Richard Bek and his men
catching fish from the sea with long lines. The water did not come up
far enough to let those in the Castle catch fish even at high tides; but
to the foot of the White Tower which was further out it came at all
times, and the Lord Lovell, under the directions of the French
castle-builder, had had the rocks there hollowed away so that a boat
could ride there very comfortably when the weather was not too rough.
Nevertheless, over that sort of boat-house a machicolation jutted out,
so that the boats of any enemy could be swamped with great stones or set
burning by means of Greek fire.
Thus those in the Castle could perceive those of the Tower receiving
from the sea the carcases of sheep, goats, and small bullocks, so that
those men lived very well and comfortably, and there seemed little
reason for their ever rendering up that place which the Lord Lovell had
built very cunningly for just such an occasion. Of wheat in the Castle
they had a sufficient store, and also of salt meat and stock fish.
For two of the towers in the outer wall, that called Constance and that
called de Insula, after the Bishop of that name, were nothing less than
the one a wheat pit and the other a brine cistern. Those towers
contained a chamber each, in the upper story, but all beneath it, to the
ground, was windowless space. In the brine that filled thus the tower
Constance there floated the carcases of two thousand sheep, one thousand
swine, five hundred goats, and five hundred oxen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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