Castle Strong

What makes a castle strong enough to outlast a siege? Hint: it's not the ramparts.

I was a medieval peasant
living in a castle under siege
by foreign forces. I worked
in sanitation and was asked
by the steward of my liege
to hang a “Castle Strong ✊”
sign on the back of my cart
for however long our
enemy’s enclosure endured.
I was reluctant to do this
not because I was disloyal
to my liege, or indifferent
to the spirit of resistance
that we would need to encourage
in order to outlast the siege,
I just didn’t like the optics
of hanging that particular
statement on a cart
that was often piled high with dung.
The scatological context
risked inverting the sentiment,
or, if I’m overthinking things
it simply made “Castle Strong”
appear to apply to the odor
the dung gave off.
The entire interior of the keep
already reeked anyway
since we couldn’t evacuate waste
through standard channels of egress
which were all blocked up
to repel unauthorized ingress.
I worried that promoting
the king’s vanilla
but otherwise serviceable
slogan would only supply
those predisposed to sedition
with more ammunition.
“It might remind them,”
I warned the steward,
“more of the negative effects
of our predicament
than inspire resolve.” The steward
who wasn’t the brightest
or most decisive aristocrat
I’d ever met, made me explain
myself to the king, who,
harried by all the other pressures
the siege had put him under,
was hardly inclined
to listen to a word I said.
I think he was insulted
that I even had an opinion
let alone the gall to utter it,
and I can’t really say that I blame him.
He was the main character,
after all, in the story of this place.
He wasn’t about to lose face
letting his messaging
be second-guessed by someone
who looked or smelled like me.
So I put the sign on the cart
as ordered, and ceased airing
opinions on matters of war,
and it was little consolation
when everything played out
exactly as I feared it would
and people began to say “Castle
Strong” under their breath
every time they smelled shit,
accelerating the unraveling
of morale among a robust
cross-section of subjects.
Then one day the siege ended
when some of the most ironic
members of the peasantry
goaded by certified traitors
among the class of burghers,
overthrew our own guards
and let the enemy in.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t have happened
eventually, and that the rest of us
wouldn’t have been hung or enslaved
if anyone had listened to me.
I just think it would’ve helped.
We might’ve survived.