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.'