"Eaaarl Corotocus!" the voice came again, just as Ranulf emerged onto the roof. "Earl Corotocus, I know you are in there!"
"Good God," the earl said with slow disbelief.
Ranulf joined him by the battlements. On the western bluff, several figures were ranged a few yards apart. One was on horseback and positioned further down the slope from the others. By her shape, she was a woman. She wore flowing white robes, and had long, flame-red hair.
"Is that the Countess of Lyr?" du Guesculin asked, astonished.
Ranulf leaned forward, but there was no mistaking her. The early morning murk had cleared, to leave the sky cloudless and pebble-blue. The other figures were men. They also wore white, but their hoods were drawn up, showing only their beards
"Eaaarl Corotocus!" the countess cried again, her strident tone echoing. "You are a liar, a thief and a murderer! And I am here to tell you that your tyranny will not be endured. Neither in this land, nor on our border."
Ranulf glanced at the earl. Corotocus was stony-faced but listening intently.
"Earl Corotocus, you and your garrison will vacate Caergrogwyn! After that you will vacate the march. But before you do any of these things, you will surrender your arms and armour, and any plunder you have taken from my people. You will also return my daughter, Gwendolyn. Be warned, if she has been harmed in any way, the price for you and your men is death."
"Feisty bitch," Carew muttered.
"She's got spirit, I'll give her that," Corotocus said. He turned to one of Gou's archers. "You, fellow? Can you strike her from here?"
The archer took off his broad-brimmed helmet and shielded his eyes. "She may be out of range, my lord."
"Try anyway." Corotocus turned not just to the other royal archers present, but to bowmen from his own company. "All of you. A purse of gold for the first man to hit her."
The bowmen set about their task, flexing and stringing their longbows, and letting fly. But it was impossible. First, they had to clear the bailey yard, then the outer curtain-wall, then the moat, and after all that the countess was still high on the bluff, from which she watched their efforts with studied silence. One by one, the goose shafts whistled harmlessly into the abyss.
"We have ballistae in the southwest tower," du Guesculin said. "Any of those will knock her from her insolent perch, my lord. I only need have them brought up here."
Corotocus shook his head. "It's not worth the trouble."
"My men have the trebuchet on the Barbican," Carew said.
"Why waste a valuable missile?"
"We should send someone out there," Navarre snarled. "She's insulted you in front of your men. She must face the consequence."
"Insults don't trouble me, Navarre. The men will stop listening after a while. Let her rot out there."
The earl made to go below, but the countess called again.
"Eaaarl Corotocus! Your silence does you no credit. You are a coward who hides behind his king's walls rather than faces his enemy in the field."
"Away, woman!" he shouted back. His face had reddened slightly. "Be thankful your daughter hasn't become my soldiers' plaything."
"That would be very like you, Earl Corotocus," she replied. "To vent your wrath on a helpless child. Just as you vented it on Anwyl's men after first tricking them into disarming themselves. Do you ever stand and fight, lord of the realm? Have you ever won a battle with bravery alone?"
Corotocus was aware of his soldiers listening along the castle's western walls. They knew he was a fierce warrior and skilled commander, but they also knew that he paid no heed to the customs of chivalry. Maybe, for the first time, some of them were wondering about the apparent non-courageousness of this policy.
"Let me go out there." Navarre begged. "I'll silence the hag."
"It might be an idea after all," Corotocus said. "Too many rabble-rousers go unpunished these days."
"Who are those people with her?" Ranulf wondered.
"Whoever they are," Navarre said, "they'll share her fate."
Ranulf turned to the earl. "My lord, before we attack, might I speak to her?"
Corotocus raised an eyebrow. "You think you can do better than I?"
"With respect, you deceived her once. She might find it difficult to trust you."
Navarre spat. "We don't need her to trust us! She should be hanged and quartered, as Prince Dafydd was."
Ranulf ignored him. "My lord, pacification should follow conquest. Isn't that always King Edward's will?"
Corotocus shrugged. "Try if you wish."
Ranulf turned and shouted: "Countess Madalyn!"
"Who speaks?" she called back.
"An English knight."
"Once you'd have been proud to wear that title."
"Whore," Navarre muttered.
"The war is over," Ranulf shouted. "It makes no sense to start it again."
"This war will never be over until Earl Corotocus and his like have ceased to threaten my people."
"You seek further destruction, madam? Madog's rebel army has been vanquished."
"You may break our bodies, English knight, but you will never break our spirit."
"Countess Madalyn… there will be more deaths."
There was a brief silence, before she replied: "Only yours."
"That's what you get for reasoning with ignoramuses," Navarre stated. He turned to the earl, pulling on his gauntlets. "I'll bring you her breasts, my lord, so that you can play jeux de paume with them."
Corotocus nodded.
"I wouldn't be too hasty, Navarre," Ranulf said. "Look."
Additional figures had begun to appear on the bluff, not just from the wooded area above the countess, but all along the western ridge. Within a few moments there were several hundred of them, but more continued to swell their ranks.
"Dear God," du Guesculin breathed. "Who are they?"
Navarre's angry self-assurance had faded a little, but he still sneered. "They don't look much like soldiers."
It was difficult to tell for certain. Over this distance, the gathering force was comprised of diminutive figures, none of whom could be seen clearly. There was the occasional glint of mail or war-harness, though most seemed to be wearing peasant garb, and tattered peasant garb at that. One or two — and at first Ranulf thought he was hallucinating — seemed to be naked. This sent a greater prickle of unease down his spine than their overall numbers did. There was now perhaps a thousand of them, but still more were appearing.
"From the north too, my lord," someone shouted.
Everyone looked, and saw processions of figures crossing the high moors to the north of the castle. They were thinly spread, moving in small groups or ones and twos, and, in many cases, limping or stumbling as though starved or crippled. They resembled refugees rather than soldiers, but all together there must have been several thousand of them. By the time they joined the countess on the western bluff, they'd be a prodigious host. Although the English held this bastion and were armed to the teeth, they were suddenly outnumbered to a worrying degree.
"Still think you can buy and sell the Welsh people, du Guesculin?" Ranulf muttered.
Du Guesculin couldn't answer; he had blanched.
"They're still only peasants," Navarre scoffed.
"If so, they're armed," Ranulf observed.
"What are scythes and reaping hooks to us?"
"I see real weapons," Carew said.
Most of the ragged shapes were carrying implements, and though many of these looked to be little more than clubs or broken farm tools, others were clearly swords, axes, poll-arms.
"Where the devil did they get their hands on those?" du Guesculin said.
"Our artillery train maybe?" Ranulf glanced at Crotocus. "Wasn't it expected to arrive last night?"
The earl didn't reply, but regarded the gathering horde with growing wariness.