directs the battle from where it is safe.’
Several of her men hurried to help, and soon three blades were stabbing at Geoffrey. Before they could skewer him, he ducked under the belly of Corwenna’s horse and out the other side, grabbing one of her legs to haul her off. She fell, kicking and spitting. He ran to his horse and scrambled into the saddle. When her men saw Geoffrey remounted, they melted away, unwilling to face a Norman on horseback. Corwenna hesitated for a moment, but then followed them, also unwilling to pit her life against such unattractive odds.
‘Back to the castle!’ Geoffrey yelled. He and Roger had done all they could, and it was time to retreat before they started taking serious casualties.
‘I can get her!’ screeched Bale, his face smeared red and eyes alight.
‘Her cavalry have regrouped!’ Geoffrey shouted back. ‘They will cut you off if you move forward, so retreat. Now!’
Most obeyed, although one man charged ahead regardless, guided by some primal part of his mind. Geoffrey saw him surrounded by foot soldiers, then dragged from his horse. He did not wait to see more. He wheeled his horse round and yelled for his men to follow. Baderon’s riders, eager to avenge their losses, thundered towards them, and Geoffrey saw that it would be a close-run thing as to whether they reached the gate in time. But a rush of arrows drove back the pursuit, and Geoffrey and his men streamed through the gate unhindered.
‘That worked,’ said Olivier, his voice unsteady. ‘But even though their dead litter the ground, we seem to have made no appreciable impact. There are still more of them than leaves on the trees.’
‘There are not,’ snapped Geoffrey, afraid the men would hear and lose heart. It was a hard enough battle, without the soldiers becoming demoralized. ‘We have severely damaged their horsemen.’
But when he clambered up to the platform, he saw that Olivier was right. Although there were many dead and wounded on the battlefield, their loss had made no dent in the main fighting force. It was then that Geoffrey knew for certain that they would never win; the odds were simply too great. Roger came to stand next to him.
‘I did not think my life would end somewhere like this,’ Roger said. He also recognized a lost cause when he saw one. ‘I thought I would die an old man, in bed with a vigorous whore on top of me.’
‘You still could, if you took your men and rode south,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I doubt Baderon will follow. Take Joan.’
Roger sniffed. His face was splattered with blood and his surcoat was drenched in it. ‘She will not leave. Durand would come, but he is the only one.’
‘Have you considered surrender?’ asked Walter weakly from behind, clearly appalled by what he had seen. ‘They may spare our lives if you give them the castle.’
Roger laughed. ‘You think they will let us give up now? You are a fool, boy!’
‘I will offer them money,’ said Walter desperately. ‘Send Giffard to tell them I will pay handsomely for safe passage. I have a chest of coins.’
‘Why would they spare you, when they can have the coins regardless?’ asked Roger.
‘Then I shall hide in the cellars,’ said Walter, ‘and come out when all the fighting is over.’
‘If you do, you will burn when the castle is fired,’ warned Geoffrey. He saw Durand nearby, his face white with fear. ‘Collect the women and children – and Walter – and lead them down that passage. Keep them hidden until nightfall.’
‘But we will be without protection,’ objected Durand uneasily.
Geoffrey nodded. ‘But we cannot win this fight, and it is only a matter of time before the enemy breach the walls.’
Durand swallowed hard. ‘Very well.’
Geoffrey clapped him on the shoulder, aware that his hand left a bloody streak on his habit. Durand asked a few questions about the tunnel, and what might be done to conceal it after they had gone, and then left. Geoffrey breathed a prayer for his success.
‘Now what?’ asked Olivier shakily. ‘We cannot repeat your manoeuvre, because they have already adapted. I think the next attack will be in several places at the same time.’
‘It is what I would do,’ said Geoffrey. ‘With a concentrated push to smash the gate. Then, once they are inside, we will have to retreat to the keep.’
‘Here they come again!’ yelled Roger. ‘They do not want to give us time to recoup.’
‘Aim for the rider on the piebald pony!’ shouted Geoffrey to the archers. ‘It is Corwenna.’
Fire arrows streamed across the walls, some falling harmlessly, some landing in places where they started to burn and others thudding into the people running to douse them. Men with ladders moved forward outside.
Geoffrey ran to the northern wall, where invaders were already swarming the ramparts. He snatched a bow from a dead archer and shot off several arrows, but the raiders were protected by the shields they held aloft, and they were too many to deter with bows. One of Geoffrey’s archers yelled that they were almost out of ammunition, and a howl of enemy glee from the east told him the gate had been breached.
‘So soon?’ he whispered, appalled.
‘It was opened from inside!’ howled Roger. ‘We have been betrayed!’
Yelling for everyone else to retreat to the keep, Geoffrey joined Roger and his mounted mercenaries in brutal combat with the first of the invaders to stream in. Gradually, the press of men forced the defenders back until they were in the narrow space between stables and kitchen. Geoffrey’s foot soldiers rushed to aid them, and the bailey was a hive of skirmishes, ringing with war cries, screams of pain and the clang of desperately wielded weapons.
A group of enemy soldiers recognized Geoffrey’s surcoat and launched a concerted attack to separate him from his troops. Slowly, they drove him into the kitchen. Geoffrey was tiring, but suddenly, Durand appeared. The clerk slipped a knife between one man’s ribs and, with better odds, Geoffrey dispatched two more. The remainder fled.
Durand watched dispassionately as the man he had stabbed choked on his own blood.
‘There,’ he said, glancing at Geoffrey. ‘I do not want you dead. Not yet, at least.’
Geoffrey dropped his hands to his knees and tried to catch his breath. Durand’s words slowly registered in his fatigued mind. ‘Not yet?’ he gasped. ‘What do you mean?’
Durand waved his arm outside the door. Recognizing the danger too late, Geoffrey moved forward, but Corwenna and half a dozen of her followers were already racing into the room. He could only gaze at Durand in horror.
‘What have you done?’
‘I have backed the side that will win,’ replied Durand calmly. ‘I always do. You said yourself you could not defeat Baderon, so do not blame me for changing my allegiance. I am simply being practical.’
Geoffrey was dumbfounded by the enormity of Durand’s betrayal. He saw his old squire regarding him with complete lack of emotion, and several facts came together in his mind as he watched Durand turn to Corwenna.
‘There is a tunnel that leads from the keep to the woods. Geoffrey wanted me to smuggle his civilians down it.’
Corwenna’s face curled into a gloating sneer. She beckoned to one of her men, ordering him to find the passage and kill anyone attempting to use it. Geoffrey felt sick.
‘Now we shall make an end of this,’ said Corwenna. ‘I will take your head and show it to Joan. It will be the last thing she will see; then we shall be free of the Mappestone curse. My Rhys will be avenged, and I will dance on your grave, just as I do Henry’s.’
Geoffrey thought about the fallen cross. ‘I might have known.’
‘Fight me, Geoffrey,’ she urged, eyes glittering madly. ‘Just you and me.’
He regarded her warily, wondering whether he had misheard. He was a trained knight, and there was no way Corwenna could defeat him, no matter how filled she was with hate. ‘Just you and me?’
‘Why?’ she snapped. ‘Are you afraid? I have waited a long time for this.’
She darted forward with her axe, but he immediately went on the offensive, attacking her with strong strokes that forced her back against the wall. He was on the brink of cutting her down when her men darted forward and forced him back. It was clearly not going to be a fair fight, and he could see by her alarmed expression that she knew she had underestimated him.
‘I will kill you,’ he warned. ‘I am not as easy as Henry.’
