The Wild Hunt

CHAPTER 27

The dawn sky on the horizon was barred grey and cream and oyster shell , striated like marble.

Smoke from cooking fires hazed the immediate air. Fatty bacon sizzled. A loaded wain of new bread from Ravenstow creaked into the camp.

Men were hearing mass, their bellies rumbling.

Guyon watched the mangonel launch another boulder at Thornford's curtain wall . There came the crash of stone splintering on stone and a high-pitched scream from within.

'It is a great pity to see such fine new defences reduced to rubble before we take them,' Eric murmured at his side.

'Do you have a better suggestion?' Guyon growled. 'If not, go and find out what's taking those miners so long and get me a cup of wine before my throat closes!'

Eric lifted long-suffering eyes towards heaven and fetched the latter first accompanied by a mutton pasty. Then, face studiedly impassive, he went in search of the sapper's foreman. Lord Guyon had been the very devil to please of late, the knowledge of what lay behind those wall s goading him to frustrated rage like a baited bear.

Unable to come to grips with de Lacey, he was venting his spleen on those around him instead. It was understandable, of course. All of them were sickened at what had happened to Rhosyn and her escort. Casualties of war were one thing; wanton destruction and rapine of a child were another, especially when the victims were people with whom one had shared companionship and hospitality and had always complaisantly assumed one would see many times again.

Having found the foreman of the sappers who had paused in his endeavours in order to eat his breakfast, Eric asked him Guyon's question.

The small man wiped his earth-smeared hand across his mouth and grimaced. 'We been working all night fast as we can, see. What does he expect, miracles?'

These men were a law unto themselves, their invaluable skill setting them above the conventions of rank. Mainly Welshmen and brought up to the craft since birth, working open-cast coal seams, they were digging a tunnel underground to a point directly beneath the wall , supporting their work with wooden props. Once completed, the tunnel would be filled with pitch-soaked furze and dry wood and bladders of pork fat, then set ablaze. As the props burned away, the tunnel would cave in, bringing down the wall above, in this case a section of the eastern rampart. It was dirty, difficult work and the rate of pay reflected it. Dai ap Owain and the men literally beneath him earned a shilling a day, which was as much as a fully accoutred knight could expect to command.

'What do I tell him, Dai?'

'Tell him we'll be done by prime and that we need more oil and brushwood.'

Eric looked doubtful. 'No sooner?' he mistakenly asked, envisaging Guyon's displeasure.

'If my lord desires such a thing, let him come down and dig himself. A fo ben, bid bont!'

Eric retreated. 'Prime,' he said to Guyon, 'and they need tinder and oil. I'll go and see to it,' and he disappeared before Guyon could flay him alive with the edge of his tongue.

By mid-morning, the grey light of dawn had brightened into a strong blue heat and the arrows that swished between besieger and besieged were hard black shafts raining down from a cloudless sky. Guyon shot a glance at his archers.

Half of them had set aside their bows and had begun preparing their short swords and round shields for the imminent assault. This was the lull , the still before the storm. Guyon's fingers twitched on Arian's reins. He made a conscious effort to relax as the stall ion side-stepped, soothing him with soft words and a smoothing hand on the sleek, silk neck.

It had taken three weeks to come this far, and not without trials. Walter de Lacey might be a fool in the political sense, might be a child-molesting murdering pervert, but it did not prevent him from being a skilled soldier and tactician. Their siege machines had been sabotaged by a daring night raid and a couple of attempts to take the keep with scaling ladders had been repelled. The enmity was intense, each foothold gained paid for in blood.

Guyon rubbed his sweating palms on his chausses. He had never wanted a thing so much in his life as to take Thornford and tear its occupant apart piece by little piece. He did not think of Eluned. To have done so now would have overset his balance and thus far he had kept it well on the level.

Over by the water butts two sappers were swilling water down, their bodies lithe, hard and small . He had never met a man of the trade much above five feet in height. Indeed Dai, their foreman, frequently stood on a mounting block or a keg so that he could address Guyon at eye level. Fiercely independent and forthright, Dai saw no reason to back down from a point of view just because he lacked stature, and the men who knew him had long since ceased to make the mistake of patronising him.

He was at the mine now, supervising the blaze which had been kindled an hour since. Guyon switched his hungry gaze again to Thornford's defences, a muscle bunching and releasing in his jaw. The stone curtain wall had replaced a wooden palisade about ten years ago when Welsh raids had been particularly savage. The original wooden keep had been rebuilt in stone and now stood three levels high. It did not approach the impregnable grandeur of Ravenstow - few strongholds did - but it was certainly stout enough to repel the Welsh and several weeks of determined, conventional siege.

'It's going to go,' Dai ap Owain lilted, appearing out of nowhere to stand at Guyon's stirrup.

'Thank Christ for that,' Guyon said and signalled his captains to take up their places and make ready their men. They knew what was to be done.

Plans had been discussed last night and in more detail this morning while they waited for the miners to complete their work. If any man bungled it now, it was his own fault, but Guyon did not anticipate problems. Eric and de Bec were experienced, dependable men, quite capable of extricating themselves and those beneath their command if a crisis arose.

He looked over his shoulder. Godric was guarding his back, his sorrel fretting and dancing, as anxious as his rider for the action to be upon them. Beside Godric, astride one of the remounts, sat Prys ap Adda, sword drawn, shield held in tight to his body. For all his declaration that he was a clumsy swordsman, Guyon had found little lacking. The Welshman might not have the bulk of the men he would be facing, but he was as fast in motion and ferocious as summer lightning and he, too, had a personal cause to lend vehemence to his sword arm. Had the man been trained to war from birth, Guyon doubted that he could have bested him.

A dull rumbling sound like the roll of summer thunder grew gradually louder and the ground shook. Horses started and shied. The bailey wall collapsed, crashing down into the tunnel, sending loose stones and mortar bounding across the courtyard floor. Smoke and thick dust mingled upwards, in an obscuring cloud.

'There's pretty for you!' Dai breathed exultantly.

Guyon was not listening. 'Forward!' he roared, flinging all his pent-up tension into the cry as, clapping spurs to Arian's flanks, he bolted for the gap.

He, Godric and Prys erupted simultaneously through the gaping hole, Guyon driving straight ahead, his companions to right and left. Eyes streaming, lungs choking on the boiling fog, Guyon rode down three of the defenders who were not swift enough to scatter before his rage.

Arian barged past them, felling two among the debris. Guyon cut down the third. The stall ion killed one man before he could rise. Guyon brained the other with his shield, dealt with another on a vicious backswing and swung the horse towards the inner bailey, the entrance to which was defended by two iron-bound gates, four fingers thick and secured on the inside by a massive bar which took the strivings of at least four stout men to lift from its slots.

'Ravenstow a moi!' Guyon bellowed and the men of his group disengaged so they could to run or ride with him, leaving the soldiers under Eric's command to take care of the outer ward. From the direction of the western wall walk, the wind fed them the yell s of de Bec's group on the scaling ladders and the deadly whiz of arbalest quarrels.

'The ram!' Guyon shouted and the order was passed swiftly down the line. The huge oak trunk with its reinforced pointed iron head was run forward by fifteen men-at-arms, coughing and sneezing in the clogged air. One of them screeched and fell , an arrow in his leg. Guyon leaped down from the stall ion and took his place, the exhilaration of battle coursing through him.

'Heave!' he cried and the ram thrust forward and smacked against the gate, boomed and rebounded. 'Back ... heave ... back ... heave ...'

And the rhythm was taken up and echoed down the line. Much to the appreciation of the men, Guyon began a crude song in English about the broaching of a difficult virgin.

A sword clanged on a nearby shield as Prys felled a defender. An arbalest bolt crashed into the ram hard by Guyon's thrusting shoulder. A moment later another one swished past his ear.

'Get that sniper!' he broke off singing to bellow furiously. 'Before he gets me! No dolts, don't stop!

God's death, you weren't as hesitant as this when you hit the London stews last summer!'

Bawdy guffaws, capping remarks and renewed efforts greeted his outburst. The dinted head of the huge oak log pounded against the solid planks. Guyon began to sweat with effort. His breath grew harsh in his throat; his mouth was dust-dry. With salt-stung eyes he glanced around, assessing the ward. Behind and around them many of the lesser combatants had begun to cry quarter rather than die and Eric's men were effectively dealing with those who preferred to fight on.

'Lord Guyon!' rasped the soldier beside him.

Sunlight glinted from his helmet as he jerked his head energetically at the gates. Guyon squinted at him and then at their target, and abruptly stood up and raised his hand. The singing raggedly ceased. The men rested the ram and stared with their lord towards the scuffed, surface-splintered but otherwise intact gates. Guyon hefted his shield, wiped his hand across his upper lip and commanded forward his two most accurate archers to train their sights upon the gap as the great, thick planks began to swing inwards.

A dour soldier wearing a leather gambeson filled the entrance, grey-streaked hair falling to his shoulders. He was weaponless, not even an eating knife about his person and behind him, like the contents of a stoppered wineskin, cowered what seemed to be all the inhabitants of the inner ward.

'My lord, we yield ourselves and this keep to your mercy,' he said formally, eyes betraying all the fear that his deliberate deep voice did not.

Guyon said nothing but gestured the men at his back to slip within and take up defensive positions. Prys spoke to him quickly in Welsh.

Guyon answered with a single terse word and did not look away from the man they were facing.

'It is no trick, lord,' the spokesman said with dignity. 'I would rather open to you now and spare the lives of good men, than fight to the last drop of blood for such a one as Walter de Lacey. If that is treason, then so be it.' His head came up proudly.

There was a rumble of assent from the crowd behind him.

'And precisely where is Walter de Lacey?' Guyon asked in a hard voice.

'He went over the west wall in the early hours of this morning, and his guard with him. I am Wulfric, the constable's deputy and former bodyguard to Lord Ralph. There is no one else here of any higher authority. You killed the man he left in command on the first charge.' He shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Lord Walter knew he could not hold this place, not without aid. He's gone down the border to look for it, but with the King's forces stretched across Wenlock Edge, I doubt he'll find it, sire, unless it comes from Wales.'

Guyon's sword hand twitched and the blade came up in response to his rage and frustration.

Over the wall and through his fingers like a fish through a hole in a net. 'Eric,' he said over his shoulder. 'Find out who was on duty at the west wall last night and bring him to me.'

Eric acknowledged, a chill running down his spine as if it was his own back that was laid bare to the lash.

Guyon returned his attention to the Saxon. 'What about the child?'

The man shook his head. 'He is here my lord, but not well , not well at all . He and his mother are both suffering from the bloody flux and like to die of it.'

Guyon gaped at him stupidly. In his mind there was only one child, his Eluned, but of course to this man the query could only pertain to de Lacey's heir. 'Not the boy,' he said: 'the Welsh girl.'

The man looked perturbed. 'My lord, she's dead. On the first night it happened. She managed to escape him and jumped off the wall walk yonder.' He looked behind him at the faces shielded by his bulk. 'Nick there was on duty and tried to grab her, but he was too late, just missed the edge of her shift.'

The young man nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. 'Did my best, but she was slippery as an eel.'

'No!' Prys shouted, shaking his head in violent denial. 'He's lying. It is not true, it is not true!' He lunged at the spokesman, who staggered and put up his hands to protect his head. Guyon intercepted him, but his mind was detached as he separated Prys from his victim and braced himself against the Welshman's onslaught. Then Eric pinioned Prys in his frenzy and led him aside. As if from a distance, Guyon heard Prys vomiting. His own body trembled with a deadly mixture of fury and fatigue. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he supposed that it was a mercy Eluned was dead.

The old man wiped a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes going sidelong to the retching Welshman. 'We buried her in the garth near the churchyard, me and Nick. Lord Walter said to throw her in the ditch, but we couldn't do that. Lady Mabell gave us a sheet to wrap her in ... we did our best, lord.'

Guyon bit the inside of his mouth. 'For which you have my thanks,' he acknowledged. 'It will not go forgotten, I promise you.'

They parted to let him through and he went across the ward and up the forebuilding stairs into the hall , his step no longer light with the spark of battle, but heavy, as though the spurs clipping his heels were fashioned of lead. It was all for nothing. De Lacey still owned life, limb and liberty.

He was suddenly aware of the myriad minor cuts and bruises he had sustained in the heat of the fray. The keep had still to be cleared and inspected and shored up against a possible counter-attack, and a report made to Henry whom he was to join as soon as all was finished here.

Only it was not finished, and perhaps never would be.

Sitting in the rushes a few yards from where he stood, one of the servants' children was playing with her straw doll , expression intent as she decorated its ragged sacking dress with a necklace of delicate amber beads.

Guyon put his face in his hands and wept.