The Moat That Won’t
Fiction. The first story of 2023!
Good morrow, citizens.
It has come to my attention—and, to be sure, to the attention of you also—that the large, impassable moat we have been building around our Castle walls since the reign of my father is a dud. A lemon. A nonstarter. A simple look around at the ashy ruins of this town square, and our state-of-the-art jousting facilities, and a lot of your homes and businesses, is proof a-plenty that our most holy and creative of fortifications has failed us when we needed it most. Alas.
If you happened to sleep through the raid last night, allow me to provide a brief wrap up forthwith. The Normans, as they so often do, approached from the south. Over yonder. Their first wave was a humble trade delegation looking to barter free-range roosters for some of our silk. It seems, now, in the pale light of day, with the benefit of hindsight, that some of the Noble Knights stationed at the Castle Gate misinterpreted the threat level of these chickenmongers—evidently one of the newer, more skittish Knights began to shout, and I quote, ‘Dragon! Dragon! They’ve got a cart full of Dragons!’ An easier mistake to make than you might think. None of us have ever seen a dragon up close and these were big boned and very self-possessed chickens, I assure you.
The next wave of Normans were, as they so often are, none too friendly. Six of them. All asking questions about the missing merchants and their inventory, all scheming wickedly, each and every one of them a scoundrel. Though even at the time we in the Castle suspected these men were part of a reconnaissance effort for the wider Norman army, I do not regret ordering that the foul brutes be dunked in the lake repeatedly while we all sat around and called them names and threw tomatoes at their heads. We laughed and we laughed and we huzzahed and we huzzahed. If any mistake was made, it was in letting them leave unharmed once the dunking had run its natural course.
What you must understand is that the Normans are not a happy people. Not like we, my citizens. They’re very… broody. Self-important. Mediaeval. We hire witches to do card tricks at our birthday parties, they burn their witches at the stake. We joust for the cardio and the team building, they joust to the death. With this in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising that when the third wave of Normans arrived bright and early the next morning—I refer here to the fully reinforced cavalry of two hundred or so highly skilled military men and a few nasty and obedient falcons—they made no effort whatsoever to see the funny side of it at all.
Many libellous questions have been asked of the Noble Knights and their conduct on the day of the raid, and I wish to quash all such rumours completely. I am proud to say that if not for the Knight’s loud, shrill screaming as they ran away, crucially, in different directions at a rollicking pace, we in the Castle would not have been so comprehensively alerted to the danger at hand. May God bless each and every one of them. Wherever they are. For any who still doubt the Nobility of our Knights, I ask you to think of a greater tragedy than that which befell Alaric, who gave his life to our protection. It seems he unsheathed his sword with such speed and courage that he nicked an artery and died slowly at the scene. And then there was Dunstan, that now-fallen pillar of patriotism, who was so riled up by the promise of glorious battle that he choked on a turkey leg at the first sight of the Normans. True heroes, the both of them.
Now. I’ve seen some very heartening reports that when the insurgent forces made it past our guards they were “spooked” by the glory of our moat. Pray thee, join me in a hearty huzzah. Huzzah!
Since we were able to retract the drawbridge in time, the Normans were shocked, despondent, by the prospect of crossing an uncrossable body of water. It looked like they were going to give up the raid all together!
And they very well might have done, had they not seen Noble Knight Bartholomew cowering in the thing, ducking his head down beneath the lip of the bank. In Bartholomew’s defence, it’s not his fault that it’s only waist deep. Nor is the moat’s depth to blame on us in the Castle. I certainly didn’t dig the thing—I believe, forgive me if I’m mistaken, that the moat was constructed entirely with peasant labour? Hmm?
No matter! Never mind! Pray, let us continue the account! O’er the moat they waded and up the wall they climbed. I’d given the archers the Friday off since they were all pretty hungover from the lake dunking—I ask you, candidly, how was I to know? Again, no matter. Our total defencelessness turned out to be quite the strategic boon. Anyone with eyes on the plundering force could see that the Normans felt a little guilty as they attacked us, and my analysts tell me that without the pure vitriol of an armed siege, without the raging fuel of a proper fight, they quickly tired of their ransacking. You’re welcome.
As far as raids go it honestly could have been worse. Yes we’ve lost a year's worth of wares and yes a few of you were killed in the fray and the fire. But this is just the nature of being pillaged. It happens, guys. These are a dark ages. The question, really, is what we’re going to do about it.
First things first. By Royal Decree, archers will be working on Fridays from now on, even if they’re still a little buzzed from the night before. And why don’t we get a few of them on call on the weekends while we’re at it?
Second, we shall dust off the catapult. I want plausible deniability for any retaliation effort so that this doesn’t turn into a blood feud—let us launch a few flaming cross-laped logs in a generally southward direction and see what we can hit. With any luck, they will think this to be an Act of God.
Lastly, I pray of thee, I beseech you in fact, let us not throw the moat out with the bathwater. Though for sure my father’s ideas were a little… speculative, even nutty, towards the end of his reign, this moat thing has potential. It’s already dug! Now is the time for innovation. What if, for example, we fill the thing with boiling oil? What if we drain it and keep lions in there? We could put in false steps! We could exorcise demons in it! We could fill it up with lances and broken glass and the more feral of the children, and then see how easy it is to wade across!
Alas, you know, I am actually sorry that we got raided, citizens. It must have been very frightening outside of Castle’s panic room, and I imagine that our extremely high income tax will be hard to pay without any of your merchandise. You will find a way. We will find a way. And when you reflect on this invasion in years to come, you will see it for the learning opportunity that it has been.
Now, to lighten the mood some, let us leave this sad, burned husk of a Castle and go to the haunted forests. I’ve hired the witches to do a comical reenactment of the raid, and then I’m going to let you throw some tomatoes at Bartholomew, for his folly. Of course the Normans did pulverise the drawbridge on their way out so we must all go through and o’er the moat—a fitting end to our saga. And let us brainstorm, while we wade, on all the wonderful ways we could make this moat as impassable as God, and my deranged father, intended. What ho, citizens! Chop chop!
