The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 13

After the battle was won there was a lot of cleaning up to do, many buildings were damaged or on fire and needed to be put out and repaired so people could safely live in the city again. Later on the builders would come to repair the walls and so make the city defendable again. The attackers settled in for a few weeks as they planned the next step of their push forwards of the north and waited to hear the news of the other army’s and how they fared in their battles. During this time Simon looked after his lord as disease was strife in the city and his lord was unlucky enough to catch a fairly bad flew which left him in bed for days, but he did recover, which was fortunate as not all who caught it were as lucky. Once they saw that the city was secured and left some of their men to guard it and received some reinforcements from the south they set off again heading further north. The king and his advisors and spent many long hours discussing where they should strike next at the rebellion and they had sent scouts out to see where the men of the north were positioned. They discovered that the castle of Ostagar had a fair number of northern men in it and was being led by general Vividius, who was one of the main men for the rebellion of the north. It was decided then that this castle would be where they would go to and seek battle.

            It took the army two weeks to march from the city to Ostagar, but it came within sight one morning and Simon’s faced dropped. The castle had massive walls and giant gates for which they would need to get past to reach the keep in the centre and that looked like an incredible hard task to do. The scouts had also reported that this castle had 10,000 men stationed within it at least, now the attacking army had more men that was for sure but still the defenders were in a good position and had enough numbers to hurt the attackers a lot. The king and his advisors knew this so they set up camp a good distance away from the castle and closed of all the roads into it, though it would take a long time indeed to starve out the inhabitants of this castle and they didn’t really have the supplies to do this. So the king and all his advisors held a council to discuss the strategy that would be used to take this castle. Lord Reiner went to this meeting as one of the leading lords of the army and so when he did this Simon sorted out his tent, cleaning it out. Then he polished the lord’s armour and sharpened his sword so it would be ready for the battle that was to come. Once this was done he sorted out his own armour and weapons, all of this took a few hours and still the lords were at their meeting. So Simon went and made sure the horses were well looked after and fed as they too would be needed in the coming days but he expected they were enjoying the rest as they had come along way with people on their backs. This didn’t take too long and so he sought out his friends to see how they were doing and he spent a few hours in their pleasant company before going back to the lord’s tent and sunset to see if had yet returned. The lord was not there so Simon went about making his own meal, while he was eating the lord came back but he motioned for Simon to remain seated as he was about to get up to tend to his lord’s needs.

            “You need not bother yourself Simon, I have been fed and watered in the king’s tent” Reiner said. “You might as well finish that before doing anything else, don’t want you losing your strength now.”

            “Yes sire” Simon replied and he continued eating his meal as the lord disappeared into his tent but he came out a few minutes later with a mug of ale and a map.

            “We did a fair amount of talking at this meeting, discussing the best way to lay siege and take the castle over yonder” Reiner said.

            “It looks like it is well defended and is a very hard not to crack” Simon commented.

            “That it is but ever nut can be cracked as long as you have the right tools and know where to apply the pressure” Reiner replied.