pavise and knocked it back and Guy was astonished by the arrow's force, and even more astonished when he looked up and saw a hand's breadth of needle-pointed arrow protruding through the pavise that was twice as thick as an ordinary shield. More arrows struck, their sound an irregular drumbeat, and the heavy pavises shook from the impact. A man cursed, wounded in the cheek by an arrow that had pierced the timber layers, but Guy steadied his men. Stay together,“ he said, go slow. When we're through the gate we go to the barricade. We can pull it down. Then the front rank charges the steps. Keep hold of the pavises till we reach the archers.” His own pavise jarred on a stone and he lifted the big wooden handle to hoist the shield over the small obstacle and an arrow immediately slammed into the rubble, missing his foot by an inch. Stay firm. he told his men,“ stay firm. God is with us. The pavise rocked back, struck high by two arrows, but Guy forced it upright, took another step, climbing now for he was crossing the rubble in the shattered gateway. They moved the big shields in small jerks, forcing them against the power of the arrow hits. It seemed there were no archers on the keep's ramparts for no arrows came down from the sky, just from the front where they were stopped by the big shields. Stay close,” Guy told his men, stay close and trust in God,' and then, from where they had been hidden behind the remaining curtain wall to the right of the gate, Sir Guillaume's men-at-arms howled and charged.
Sir Guillaume had seen how the attackers were hiding behind the pavises and had reckoned those great shields would blind them, and so he had thrown down one end of the barricade and taken ten men to the corner of the yard behind the curtain wall, a place where the stable dungheap lay, and now, as Guy's men appeared through the arch, Sir Guillaume attacked. It was the same tactic he had used to such effect against Joscelyn's attack, only this time the plan was to charge, kill and wound, and immediately retreat. He had told his men that idea over and over again. Break the pavise wall, he had said, then let the archers do the rest of the slaughter while they got back to the gap in the barricade, and for an instant it all seemed to work. The onslaught did surprise the attackers, who reeled back in disarray. An English man-at-arms, a wild man who loved nothing better than a fight, split a skull with an axe while Sir Guillaume thrust his sword into another man's groin, and the men holding the pavises instinctively turned towards the threat and that meant the shields turned with them and opened their left sides to the archers on the top of the steps. Now!' Thomas called, and the arrows flew.
Guy had not foreseen this, but he was ready. In his rear rank was a man called Fulk, a Norman, who was loyal as a dog and fierce as an eagle. Hold them, Fulk!“ Vexille shouted. Front rank with me!” An arrow had glanced off one of his rerebraces, wounding a man behind, and two of the front rank were staggering with arrows through their mail, but the rest followed Guy Vexille as he closed up the pavise wall and headed towards the gap at the end of the barricade. Sir Guillaume's men should have retreated, but they were locked in battle now, lost in the excitement and terror of close combat; they were fending blows with their shields, trying to find chinks in enemy armour. Guy ignored them and went past the barricade, and then, with the heavy pavise still protecting him, he advanced on the steps. Five men went with him; the rest were attacking Sir Guillaume's few men, who were now seriously outnumbered. The archers had turned on the six men coming to the steps and were wasting their arrows on the huge shields, and then the six crossbowmen, unnoticed in the confusion, appeared in the gateway and shot a volley that tore into the English bowmen. Three went down instantly; another found himself holding a broken bow that had been shattered by a quarrel.
And Guy, shouting that God was with him, discarded the pavise and charged up the steps.
Back!“ Thomas shouted. Back!” There were three men-at-arms waiting to defend the stairway, but first his archers had to get through the door and Guy had trapped one man, tangling his legs with the sword so he fell, then making him scream when the long blade rammed up his groin. Blood cascaded down the steps. Thomas thrust his bowstave at Guy's chest, pushing him back, then Sam seized Thomas and dragged him back into the doorway. After that it was a scramble up the stairs, always twisting to the right, past the three men-at-arms who waited at the top. Hold them,“ Thomas said to the three. Sam! Up top! Quick!”
Thomas stayed on the stairs. Sam and the other seven archers who were left would know what to do once they reached the keep's battlements, while for Thomas the most important thing was to stop Guy's men climbing the steps up to the first hall. The attackers had to come with the stairway's central spine on their right and that would restrict their sword arms, while Thomas's men, fighting downwards, would have more space to wield their weapons, except Guy's first man up was left-handed and he carried a short-handled, broad-bladed axe that he chopped into a man-at-arm's foot and brought him down in a clatter of shield, sword and mail. The axe fell again, there was a brief scream, then Thomas loosed an arrow at three paces“ range and the axeman was falling back, the shaft in his throat. A crossbow bolt followed, screeching along the curve of the wall, and Thomas saw Genevieve had collected four of the coredors” bows and was waiting for another target. Sir Guillaume was now in desperate trouble. He was outnumbered and cornered. He shouted at his men to lock shields and to
brace themselves against the yard's corner where the dungheap obstructed him. Then Guy's men came in a rush and the shields went up to meet swords and axes. Sir Guillaume's men thrust the shields forward to rock the enemy back and lunged their swords at bellies or chests, but one of the enemy, a big man showing the symbol of a bull on his jupon, had a mace, a great ball of iron on a stout handle that he used to beat down an Englishman's shield until it was nothing but splintered pieces of willow held together by the leather cover and the shield's holder had a crushed forearm. Yet still the Englishman tried to ram the broken shield into his attacker's face, until another Frenchman rammed a sword into his guts and he fell to his knees. Sir Guillaume seized the mace, hauled it towards him and the enemy came fast, tripping on his victim. Sir Guillaume hit him in the face with the hilt of his sword, the crosspiece sinking into an eye, but the man fought on, blood and jelly on his cheek, and two more enemy were coming behind him, prising the short line of defenders apart. An Englishman was on his knees, being hammered on the helmet by two swords, then he bent forward and vomited and one of the Frenchmen shoved the sword blade behind his back-plate, in the gap between plate and helmet, and the Englishman screamed as his spine was flayed open. The man with the mace, one-eyed now, was trying to stand and Sir Guillaume kicked him in the face, kicked him again, and still he would not stay down so Sir Guillaume rammed his sword into the man's breast, ripping through mail, but then a Frenchman thrust a sword at Sir Guillaume's breast and the blow hurled him back onto the dungheap. They're dead men!“ Fulk shouted. They're dead men!” And just then the first volley of arrows came from the keep's battlements.
The arrows slashed into the backs of Fulk's men-at-arms. Some wore plate and the arrows, coming at a steep angle, glanced off that armour, but the bodkin points drove through mail and leather and suddenly four of the attackers were dead and three were wounded, and then the archers turned their bows on the crossbowmen in the gate. Sir Guillaume, unwounded, managed to stand. His shield was split and he threw it away, then the man with the bull on his jupon raised himself onto his knees and grappled with him, arms about his waist, trying to pull him down. Sir Guillaume used both hands to hammer the heavy pommel of his sword onto the man's helmet, yet he was still hauled down, falling with a crash, and he let go of his sword as the big man tried to throttle him. Sir Guillaume felt with his left hand to find the bottom of the man's breastplate, drew his dagger with his right and stabbed up into the big man's belly. He felt the knife go through leather, then puncture skin and muscle and he worked the blade, ripping at the man's guts as the coarse, sweat-reddened, bloodied, one-eyed face snarled at him. More arrows flew, thumping with a sickening thud into Fulk's remaining men. Here!“ Guy Vexille was in the doorway at the top of the steps. Fulk! Here! Leave them! Here!”
Fulk repeated the order in his roaring voice. So far as he could see only three of the defenders were alive in the corner of the courtyard, but if he stayed to finish them off then the archers on the tower would kill all his men. Fulk had an arrow in the thigh, but he felt no pain as he stumbled up the steps and into the big doorway where, at last, he was safe from the arrows. Guy now had fifteen men left. The others were dead or else still in the yard, wounded. One man, already struck by two arrows, tried to crawl to the steps and two more arrows thudded into his back, throwing him down. He twitched, and his mouth opened and closed in spasms until a last arrow broke his spine. An archer whom Guy had not noticed before, a man who had been lying on a bed of straw, struggled a few paces across the yard and used a knife to cut the throat of a wounded man-at-arms, but then a crossbow bolt flashed from the gate to strike the archer and throw him onto his victim's body. The archer vomited, jerked for a few heartbeats and then was still.
Sir Guillaume was helpless. He had two men left, not nearly enough to attack the doorway, and Sir Guillaume himself was bruised, bleeding and feeling strangely and suddenly weak. His stomach gave a heave and he retched emptily, then staggered back onto the wall. John Faircloth was lying on the dungheap, bleeding from the belly, unable to talk as he died. Sir Guillaume wanted to say something comforting to the dying Englishman, but a wave of nausea swept over him. He retched again, and his armour felt curiously heavy. All he wanted to do was lie down and rest. My face. he said to one of the two survivors, a Burgundian, look at my face,“ and the man obeyed and
