Seeing their leader give way, the band broke and pressed tumultuously back over the temporary drawbridge thrown across the waterless moat for their use; and Leofric and his men sprang forward to pursue them.
Then Warrenne turned again with a fierce rallying cry, and his knights, used to strict discipline, and instantly understanding his aim, turned with him, and, as at Hastings, the advantage was won. It was a hazardous experiment, but it had succeeded.
Man to man the battleaxes and spearmen were no match for the mailed and mounted Normans. The struggle was bitter. Horses and knights, Normans and English, fell cursing and kicking from the bridge into the moat. But Earl Warrenne, with a bevy of knights at his heels, made their way through the breach, penetrating into the courtyard of the castle; while Leofric lay senseless on the bridge, with his yellow curls dangling over the edge, streaked with crimson, and dripping red drops into the gulf below.
So the king's men had made their way within the walls of Blauncheflour, after two months of strong endeavour; and the sight of Warrenne's chequered banner inside the defences they had held so manfully brought terror into the hearts of the besieged. Their unnerved arms struck feeble blows; and the king's knights rode them down, driving them to the very stairway of the great entrance to the donjon keep.
All at once, from above their heads came a clear voice like a clarion,—
'St. Nicholas for Guader! A Guader! a Guader! Shall your lord come back, and find his castle lost?'
There, on the platform before the grand entrance, stood a white-robed figure, with uplifted arms and a wildly shining face, which set the half-pagan Anglo-Danes thinking of Valkyries and Norns, and the Bretons and Normans of angels and saints; but when they recognised the face of Emma the countess, they shouted a mighty shout, and the blood came back into their hearts with a great glow of determination, and they rushed once more fiercely against their assailants.
'I am here to see how bravely you maintain his cause in his absence!' cried Emma from the portal.
Then the knights mixed in the wild mêlée at her feet; while the king's archers shot their whizzing shafts from the wooden towers, and the king's slingers hurled their leaden balls and stones, fighting the men who upheld the East Anglian banners on the walls. Whether or no every arrow had its billet, as it is said every bullet has in modern days, many an arrow flew far beyond the men at whom it was aimed, and whistled down into the courtyard.
As the besieged knights looked for inspiration to their beloved Châtelaine, brimming over with the strong desire to distinguish themselves before her eyes, they saw a cloth-yard shaft fly straight to her white figure, and strike the tender form they were burning to protect, marring it with a crimson streak. A great howl of rage rose up against the sky, and the passion of vengeance nerved their arms with furious force.