'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.

CHAPTER 28

When Judith arrived at Thornford in response to an urgent summons from her husband; it was sunset of the second day and work still hard afoot to repair the worst of the miners' ravages.

In the outer ward, scene of so much previous destruction, small cooking fires burned as normal, tended by the soldiers' women and the smell s of bread and pottage wafted enticingly on the evening wind. Judith guided Euraidd between the fires. A bat swooped low overhead, casting for insects in the gloaming. Broken arrows and lances littered the ground.

A groom held Judith's mare and Guyon himself stepped from the shadows to lift her from the saddle. His lids were heavy and dust-rimmed.

Sweat and battle dirt gleamed in the creases of his skin, but the narrow semblance of a smile glinted before he stooped to give her a scratchy kiss.

'You made good speed, Cath fach,' he approved. 'I had not thought to see you until tomorrow noon at least.'

'Needs must when the devil drives,' she answered lightly, her eyes full of concern.

His smile vanished. 'Yes,' he agreed blankly and turned, his arm around her waist, to face the keep. 'Needs must.'

Judith eyed him thoughtfully. His letter had informed her of the victory and asked her to come quickly, little else, and she had hailed the messenger back from his refreshment to reassure her that Guyon was not wounded. First qualm of terror dissolved, she had set out to pump the man for the information not contained in the letter.