`` The Foissoning ''

A hail of crossbow bolts whined over the battlements and twain of the garrison soldiers fell groaning onto the parapet. Mine eyes then turned to Hugo, and with dismaye I saw him turn tail and run towards the chapel.

My father issued his orders and the inhabitants of the castle were gathered into the inner keep. Father muttered some words to the Sergeant-at-Arms, and sud denly I was being hustled with the women and children through a narrow door that I had passed by many times but had never before seen opened. We squeezed through a sort of labyrinth into a great, gloomy circular hall lit solely by the light from an arrow slit.

The sergeant left, and I turned to see Hugo standing in the center of the chamber. He was wearing a white tunicke. A long hood hung down his back and a sash of green cord was knotted around his waste. In his cupped handes he was holding what looked like an acorne the size of a fist. Ashen was his face and he seemed oblivious to the women and children who hurried past him to huddle in fear under the arrow slit.

I was about to address him, but abashed by his stern countenance, I went to sit with my mother and six other women. Including me, there were ten children, and despite the graveness of our plight, not even the youngest of them was crying. We sat there in silent fear.

There was a commotion, and four men, followed by my father, entered the chamber. Father was holding his sword in his left hande and his right arm was thrown across his chest with the thumb hooked into his collar.

The women rushed across the chamber. Those who found their husbands still alive, embraced them with with tenderness, while the unfortunate widows sank back, forlorne and tearful to sit with theire children in the gloom beneath the arrow slit.

My father had received a grievous blow from the sword of Godric, but his chainmail vest had saved him from dismemberment. Instead, he suffered with characteristic fortitude the pain of a broken collarbone.

"Father," I asked him, "What is this place?"

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