Ranulf finally nodded and let the dead weight that was Ramon la Roux slide to the floor.
'Not in here!' Zacharius bellowed. 'This is a hospital, not a blasted mortuary!'
Without a word, Ranulf took la Roux by the heels and dragged him outside onto the cobblestones, where he had no option but to leave him among the other piles of dead or dying men.
Briefly, Zacharius followed him out, mopping his hands on a crimson rag. 'Dare I ask how the fight is going?'
Ranulf gave this some thought. 'No.'
'What's that?'
'You asked me a question, did you not? I gave you my answer. 'No'.' Ranulf turned and trudged back towards the Constable's Tower. 'For the sake of your own sanity, don't dare ask how the fight is going.'
It was now late afternoon and just as Ranulf re-ascended to his post, word reached Earl Corotocus's ears that bolt-throwers were assailing the Inner Fort from the east side, a part of the stronghold which, up until now, had not been struck at all.
'We're spread too thinly,' he said to Navarre. 'We haven't enough men to cover the entire perimeter.'
'My lord, if we retreat now the Inner Fort will fall. We'll only have the Keep left.'
Corotocus nodded grimly. 'Agreed. We must hold at all costs. The king will come. I know he will.'
But beyond Grogen Castle, there was no sign of the king. In fact, quite the opposite. For a brief startling moment, Ranulf had a chance to glance out over the Constable's Tower parapet, and found himself focussed on a landscape literally swamped by tides of the dead. For as far as the eye could see, from all directions, their cursed and bedraggled legions were advancing towards the castle. This vision alone might have been enough to send a man mad, but then, if it were possible, something even more frightening happened.
With a collision like a thunderclap, an object impacted in the middle of the tower roof. It was a massive thirty-gallon barrel, which partially exploded and ejected burning naptha in a wide arc, engulfing maybe twenty of the earl's men. It didn't break apart totally, but bounced thirty yards, crashed through a door and hurtled down a spiral stair in which numerous wounded awaiting transport to the infirmary were crouched or lying, immersing and igniting them one by one. A second such missile followed immediately afterwards, this one a colossal earthenware pot. It struck the western battlements, blew apart and spurted liquid flame all along the rampart, swallowing some half a dozen defenders who were cowering there.
Every man still on his feet spun around towards the western bluff, where the three great siege engines, War Wolf, Giant's Fist and God's Maul had finally been assembled. Tremulous prayers seeped from throats already hoarse with shouting and screaming, as a third incendiary came tumbling down across the valley, black smoke trailing through the air behind it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Countess Madalyn had often heard it said that King Edward of England was a tyrant.
Her own people had no time for him, seeing only a despot and conqueror who betrayed his own chivalrous ideals with acts of cruelty and barbarism. But the English had a different view of their ultimate liege-lord. They regarded him as a great war-leader, but also as a font of justice. Any man, it was said, no matter how base, could approach King Edward and beseech him person-to-person. The king had reformed the entire legal system in England in favour of the lower classes. He'd installed a parlement at Westminster as a permanent institution. Clearly there were huge contradictions in his character. He was a pious Christian who'd already ridden on crusade once and apparently planned to do so again. He regularly sought diplomatic solutions to international crises; in the 1280s he was known as 'the peace-maker of Europe'. But he notoriously detested the enemies of his countrymen, and when he waged war against them it was a ghastly form of total war, designed to terrorise their populace into subservience.
Could she deal with such a man? Would he even grant her an audience, given what he'd done to Dafydd ap Gruffyd, whose rebellion twelve years ago had been rewarded with a particularly torturous fate; Prince Dafydd's body torn with pincers and hanged until half dead, whereupon it was disembowelled and hacked into quarters?
It was an onerous decision that she faced. But as she stood among the trees on the western bluff and gazed down on Grogen, she became increasingly certain what that decision would be.
The three giant catapults that Gwyddon had captured from the English were now in place on a plateau slightly lower down. Again and again, they lobbed huge, fiery missiles, each one of which trailed across the darkened sky like a comet and impacted on the fortifications with a flash like summer lightning. Night had now fallen fully, which gave the entire business a demonic aspect. The sky was jet-black, but at the same time red as molten steel. Liquid fire raged high on the battlements and streamed down the castle's outer walls. Sulphurous smoke, infernally coloured, belched from its arrow-slit windows. A cloying stench of burning mingled with the more familiar reek of decaying flesh.
Countess Madalyn's dead army seemed numberless as it trudged down the slope like some vast herd of mindless cattle, moaning and mewling as they crossed the southwest bridge and followed the berm path, finally entering the castle through its forced-open Gatehouse. She felt numb as she watched them clamber like ants up ladders and ropes, not just on the Constable's Tower, but all around the walls of the Inner Fort. Even from this distance, the ringing of blade on blade assailed her ears. From so far away, the screams of rage and death sounded like the squeaking of rodents, but there was no end to it. The English were still resisting, as the young knight had threatened they would. But surely they couldn't hold for much longer, and when every one of them was put to the sword, Gwyddon's abomination would be complete. King Edward the crusader would then have no option but to fall upon the Welsh as a nation of devils.
Countess Madalyn felt nothing — neither fear, nor remorse — as she turned and climbed into her saddle. Her bolsters were already filled with food and water. She also had a knapsack containing gold and jewellery as proof of her identity, which she concealed carefully among her saddlebags. Drawing a rough, homespun cowl over her head, she kicked her horse forward.
The hillside tracks would be treacherous in the dark. They were narrow, winding, overhung with low branches. But Countess Madalyn knew her native landscape well.
Her native landscape.
It pained her to think that way.
The Welsh were an indigenous part of these British isles, but they had their own culture and customs, their own beliefs, their own long tradition of self-governance. Why could their neighbours in England not see that? She knew that it wasn't the English themselves, but their rulers. Ever since the first Norman kings had created their powerful military state, they'd sought control over the entire island of Britain. For all their airs and graces, for all their pretensions to honour and courtliness, they were at heart a rapacious breed.
It frustrated her, maddened her.
And yet here she was, seeking to parley with one of those very same Anglo-Norman kings. In fact, it was worse than that — with one of the most fearsome and warlike kings that had ever sat on the Westminster throne.
Egging her horse on, she tried to shake these fears from her mind. This was about national survival, nothing less. Not just the survival of Wales in the flesh, but Wales as a spiritual nation. Gwyddon's way was the druids' way. She didn't despise him purely for that. The druids, she knew, had been stalwart friends to the Welsh in their battles against the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes. Everyday Welsh life was flavoured with pagan traditions, mostly of the more benign sort. But Gwyddon, in his overweening ambition, had unleashed a horror the like of which Christendom had never seen and could never tolerate. Even if he was successful, what kind of world was he trying to create where the dead commanded the living? And what would the view of the Almighty be — He, who had forbidden sorcery in all its forms, on pain of everlasting fire?
She rode on, more determined than ever to make a truce with King Edward. She was now descending a wooded brae, very steep and slippery with dew. The air was exquisitely cold in that way that only the air in March can be. Her horse steamed; her own breath puffed in moon-lit clouds. The avenues between the trees were damp, black corridors. Now that the roar of battle had fallen far behind, she heard nothing. Her horse continued to find its own way, with slow, tentative footfalls. Only when they reached level ground, did it increase its pace a little, but
