'There is a tub prepared above. You must be frozen stiff.'

The words ' sensible Judith' floated amongst the disjointed flotsam of the upper layers of his mind. He was suddenly aware of exhaustion seeping through his body just as the iciness of the flagged floor was seeping into his knees. 'To the soul,' he muttered, genuflecting to the altar and rising stiffly to his feet. 'To the pit of my soul.'

Staggering with weariness, he let her lead him up the stairs to the main bedchamber. She dismissed the maids with a swift gesture and, as the curtain dropped behind the last one, began unbuckling his swordbelt.

As the belt slipped into her hands, he took her by the shoulders and tipped up her chin to examine her face. The dim light concealed some of the ravages, but not all . Mauve shadows marred the clarity of her eyes and the bones of her face were sharp, suddenly reminding him of the first time he had seen her.

He was a sleepwalker, jolted awake. 'Ah God, Judith,' he said on a broken whisper and pulled her tight and close.

'I met her on the day before it happened,' she said into his breast, her voice cracking. 'God's love, Guy, I was so jealous, I wanted to scratch out her eyes, but I couldn't. She was so ... so honest, and she did not deserve what they did to her!'

She burst into tears, digging her fingers so hard into Guyon's hauberk that the rivets cut deep semicircles against her knuckles.

'Judith, love, don't!' Guyon pleaded, kissing her wet face while tears spilled down his own. 'Do you want to break me?'

'I can't help it!' she sobbed. 'Since that night in Southwark, we have not had a moment to ourselves that has not been marred by fear and strain and war!' She struck his hauberk with her clenched fist.

Guyon seized her hand in one of his and clamped the other around her waist, holding her tightly, aware through his own shuddering of hers.

At length, sniffing and tear-drenched, she pulled away to look at him. 'I meant to be calm and strong when you came home,' she whispered,

'and instead I shriek like a harpy. The tub is growing cold and you are still in your mail.'

'Never mind the tub,' he said, his whole body shaking with cold and the delayed reaction of shock and fatigue. 'I have lived without creature comforts for so long that another night and day does not matter. Just help me unarm and come to bed.'

Judith wondered whether she should persuade him to eat some food and decided that, for now, she just did not possess the energy. The battle could be taken up again once they had both slept.

'Judith.' He stretched out his hand to her in supplication. With a soft cry she returned to his embrace, stood tightly enclosed within it for a brief moment, then set about helping him remove his mail.

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.