Simon Beaufort - Deadly Inheritance

‘You brought us to this point!’ screamed Lambert. His eyes were glazed and he was splattered with gore from head to foot. ‘And you killed my brother!’

‘On my honour, I did not raise my hand against Seguin!’ shouted Geoffrey. ‘Can we not, even at this stage, stop the slaughter and negotiate?’

‘It is too late!’ yelled Lambert bitterly. ‘Baderon is not in control: Corwenna is, and she will not rest until Goodrich is destroyed. It is what happens when you make alliances with rabid dogs – and there are few more rabid than her. I wish I had never set eyes on the woman.’

Before he could say more, there was the crash of a battleaxe, and Lambert toppled from his saddle, blood erupting from a huge gash in the back of his head. Behind him, face split in a diabolical grimace, was Corwenna.

Her face was splattered with blood, and it was clear that she had been at the heart of the slaughter. Her eyes were wild, and she was more ecstatic than Geoffrey had ever seen her. She drove her horse forward and raised her axe, aiming for his head. He raised his shield and launched an attack of his own, jabbing hard under it with his sword. Corwenna gave a screech of outrage as the blade bit into her thigh, and brought the axe down with all her might.

Caught at the wrong angle, Geoffrey’s shield split into several pieces, but before she could take advantage, several vicious swipes of his sword drove her back. With the heat of the moment compounding his mental exhaustion, he made an appalling blunder, jumping from his saddle to grab a replacement shield from a corpse. It was an inexcusable mistake that left him infinitely more vulnerable: no knight willingly left his horse during battle.

Corwenna, who was no match for him under normal circumstances, grinned her delight and came after him with a series of hacking swipes. Fortunately, it was easy to evade them, as she held her axe high up on its handle, restricting its reach.

‘Why did you kill Lambert?’ Geoffrey demanded, trying to make the crazed woman lose concentration.

‘He was weak,’ she snarled, swinging her axe, as he dodged away. ‘Like Baderon, who does not fight, but 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.