being groomed and caparisoned; sumpter beasts, snubbed to great posts, were

being laden with the tents, bedding, and belongings of the men; while those

already packed were wandering loose among the other animals and men. There

was squealing, biting, kicking, and cursing as animals fouled one another

with their loads, or brushed against some tethered war horse.

Squires were running hither and thither, or aiding their masters to don

armor, lacing helm to hauberk, tying the points of ailette, coude, and

rondel; buckling cuisse and jambe to thigh and leg. The open forges of

armorer and smithy smoked and hissed, and the din of hammer on anvil rose

above the thousand lesser noises of the castle courts, the shouting of

commands, the rattle of steel, the ringing of iron hoof on stone flags, as

these artificers hastened, sweating and cursing, through the eleventh hour

repairs to armor, lance and sword, or to reset a shoe upon a refractory,

plunging beast.

Finally the captains came, armored cap-a-pie, and with them some semblance

of order and quiet out of chaos and bedlam. First the sumpter beasts, all

loaded now, were driven, with a strong escort, to the downs below the

castle and there held to await the column. Then, one by one, the companies

were formed and marched out beneath fluttering pennon and waving banner to

the martial strains of bugle and trumpet.

Last of all came the catapults, those great engines of destruction which

hurled two hundred pound boulders with mighty force against the walls of

beleaguered castles.

And after all had passed through the great gates, Norman of Torn and the

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