‘Where are the women? Your wife and the girl Flora?’ Simon asked.
‘I don’t know. Did the men leave them in the hall?’
‘It’s possible,’ Simon grunted. ‘But if they’re there, that’s where Ben and Esmon were too, so they’re probably safe.’
‘We won’t know until we get out of here,’ Baldwin said. He glanced about him. ‘And there’s no easy escape.’
Simon nodded, and cocked his head. There was a change in the sounds from below. No more thumping, but gleeful roars, as though a new force had broken into the castle’s yard.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was with relief that Coroner Roger heard the sudden bellow from the rear of the castle. Squire Hubert and the Reeve were climbing the walls! The Coroner debated whether to chase around to the back to join them, but the Squire had promised he’d have the gate opened in moments and was true to his word. Soon there was a grating noise as the bars were dragged back, and then the gates opened quietly on their greased hinges. The Coroner spurred his mount inside, Thomas and Godwen at his side, the posse immediately behind them.
The yard looked as though it was filled with corpses. Everywhere was the metallic scent of blood. The Coroner gazed around, urgently seeking a face he knew, and he felt only relief when he realised that nowhere could he see Baldwin or Simon among the dead or wounded.
Ahead there was a fight at the foot of the tower. When the men had clambered over the fence, they had been hidden by the mass of the tower itself, and they had surprised Brian and his men at the foot of the keep.
Coroner Roger roared at his men and, brandishing his sword, cantered to them. He could see Brian, who turned with a look of shock on his face at this new threat, and bellowed to his own men. One fell as Godwen rode over him, but then two men grabbed Godwen’s booted foot and pulled him from his mount. Before Coroner Roger could get to him, he heard an almost insane-sounding scream of pure demoniacal rage, and saw Thomas running past him on foot, a heavy war-axe in his left hand, a thick, battered-looking club in his right. With these he flailed about him like a berserker of old, and soon there was a respectful space about him. Godwen was lying still on the ground and Thomas went to him, standing over him with his weapons ready.
The Coroner saw that Brian was being pushed back, but then two of his men appeared from behind, from the stables, and suddenly it was the Coroner’s men who were being beaten back. Coroner Roger dropped from his horse to rally the men, running to the front, and arrived in time to see Brian pointing at him. Roger had time to deflect one blow at his head, and then, when he threw a look at Brian again, he saw to his horror that the man had a crossbow in his hands and was aiming it at him.
For the Coroner, time seemed to stand still. The noise of the battle faded and died, and he was aware only of the point of the bolt that was aiming at his body. Men about him screamed and shouted, stabbed, slashed, moved forward and back, lifted their arms, and then themselves fell, and Coroner Roger knew nothing of them. The sounds were faded and dulled as though heard from an immense distance, while all he could hear was the blood hammering in his veins like an enormous drum. He could think of nothing but his wife, whom he adored, whom he would have wanted to see just once more, and yet whom he must never see again. That thought was hideously painful, as though the quarrel’s dart had already punctured his breast. She was his lover, but more than that, she was his very best friend.
Then the door to the keep was pulled wide, and Sir Ralph stood in the doorway for an instant, before running straight at Brian, roaring ‘TRAITOR! TRAITOR!’
His onward rush took him through the first group of men, and he was almost at Brian’s back in the time that it took Brian to glance over his shoulder. Seeing his peril, he ducked, and the crossbow was pointed away. Suddenly Coroner Roger was aware that he had been holding his breath, and he exhaled, light-headed. Then he felt his senses renew as he caught sight of Baldwin and Simon leaving the door to the keep. They ran out and joined Sir Ralph in attacking Brian’s men in flank, and that turned the course of the battle.
Brian and his men had been pushed back until now he was at the hall’s entrance with the last few of his men. There was a scuffle there, and Roger saw Sir Ralph trying to clamber up the steps to reach Brian, but then he saw that dreadful crossbow rise, saw Brian take a casual aim – from that distance, a matter of feet, he could not miss – and fire.
The bolt struck Sir Ralph in the forehead, and the Coroner saw his head jerk as though struck by a hammer. Even as Sir Ralph’s body hesitated, Coroner Roger knew he was dead. No man could survive a wound like that. Then Sir Ralph fell backwards down the steps and lay at the foot of them, a crumpled body with all life gone, and then Brian was in the hall, the door slammed firmly shut in the face of the attackers.
‘Aha! Coroner. We thought you might have forgotten us,’ Baldwin gasped.
‘You thought I’d forgotten you? When I’d promised you a good meal last night, I knew you had to be ill or detained, when you never arrived. A trencherman like you, missing a free meal!’
Baldwin could laugh now. The relief of surviving made him feel an excess of delight that rushed through his veins and into his head, almost like sex. He gave a great sigh. ‘I am glad you have so little understanding of my appetites.’
‘Ha! You think so?’ said the Coroner, and hiccupped.
He stumbled, a hand grabbing for Baldwin, catching him by the shoulder. Baldwin smiled still more broadly, thinking merely that his friend had stubbed his boot or tripped on a cobble, but then the Coroner coughed, and a little gobbet of blood spattered on Baldwin’s tunic. Coroner Roger was gazing up at Baldwin’s face with an expression of confusion, and then a frown passed over his features. That was when the knight saw the point of the crossbow bolt protruding from Coroner Roger’s breast.
‘Christ Jesus!’ he murmured, and it was almost a sob. The Coroner was now feebly trying to stay on his feet, but his legs would not support him. Baldwin tried to smile at him, but he had a great choking lump in his throat, and the words would not come for a moment.
At the hall, Baldwin saw a movement in the great window. Brian must be standing on a table to fire through it. ‘Look out! ’Ware the crossbow in the window, there,’ he roared, before carrying Coroner Roger into the protection of the keep.
Flora and Lady Annicia remained in the relative safety of the solar block with Ben. Lady Annicia had been in the hall when Brian leaped in through the door with his remaining companions, slamming and barring the door to the hall. She had been going to ask about her husband when she saw the expression on Brian’s face. There was a feral brutality there; this man was going to die, and like a badger caught in a narrow alley, he was turning at bay ready to slaughter as many others as he could.
She slammed shut the door to the solar, shoving the first of the heavy bolts across before Brian could reach her. Then the other two bolts, one at the top, one at the bottom. The oak timbers of the door were sound enough to hold any man at bay for an age. Without an axe, he could do little more than hurl abuse through it. There was one loud thud, and she guessed that it was a crossbow bolt slamming into it, but the point failed to penetrate the inch-thick wood.
There was a slight gap between door and frame, and from this she could see Brian stacking one table upon another, then peering through the window and firing. Suddenly the shouting outside grew louder, and she wondered what was going on. Lady Annicia was worried. She hoped that her husband and son were still alive and well, but she had seen nothing of either. Similarly, she had seen nothing of the other men. Where were her own servants – the grooms, gardeners, steward and others?