Cruel As the Grave (18 page)

Justin was not sanguine about Durand's prospects; to talk John into doing something he was not inclined to do, Merlin sould be needed. But Eleanor had not asked for his opinion. He started to speak, then saw that she was not done. "Madame?" he prompted gently. "Is there more?"

"Yes ... there is more. If John will not surrender and the castle falls, tell Durand that he is to keep close to my son at all times. He will understand."

Justin was not sure that he did. "But surely none would harm Lord John, Madame? Rebel or not, he is still a king's son, your son."

"Have you ever been in a siege, Justin?"

"No, my lady, I have not."

"When a castle falls, there is utter confusion and chaos. Midst the smoke and fighting and looting, who is to say if a man dies by mischance or murder?"

"But King Richard has no son of his own. Many see Lord John as his heir. It would be like ... like killing a future king, my lady!"

"Exactly," she said, and Justin was quiet for a moment, embarrassed by the innocence of his protest. If there were men who'd kill for a pittance or a whore's smile, why would there not be men to kill for a crown? Men who wanted to see Richard's nephew Arthur succeed him, others who wanted anyone but the king's brother. John must have more enemies than Rome had priests, Justin thought bleakly. As for himself, he had only two and they'd be awaiting him at Windsor Castle.

10

WINDSOR CASTLE

April 1193

Windsor Castle looked at first glance as if it could hold out until Judgment Day. It was as vast as it was formidable: a stone shell keep, two large baileys, more than a dozen rectangular towers, and walls faced with heath stone encompassing more than thirteen acres. A closer inspection revealed the vulnerabilities of the riverside fortress: chunks gouged out of the walls by the powerful mangonels of the besieging army, ploughed-up earth and pits in the baileys where the heavy stones had come crashing down, burned-out shells of wooden buildings ignited by flaming arrows. Plumes of smoke billowed up into the sky and the air was laden with so much dust that the castle seemed to shimmer in a haze of heat and soot. Cinders swirled on the wind, glowing embers drifting down like a hellish rain, imperiling defenders and attackers alike. Justin reined in, mesmerized by this compelling, horrific scene. All that was lacking was the acrid odor of brimstone.

The closest villages - Windlesora and New Windsor - were deserted, their unlucky inhabitants long since fled. But the army encampment was like a town of sorts, for it was crowded with soldiers, peddlers, and the inevitable prostitutes. A siege could be as tedious as it was dangerous, for it could drag on for weeks, even months; sometimes only the threat of starvation would induce a trapped garrison to surrender. Windsor's siege had not lasted long enough to dishearten the attackers and there was a mood of expectancy in the camp.

It was soon evident that an assault was in the works, for well out of arrow range, carpenters were busy erecting a belfry. Justin stopped to watch, never having seen one before. The tower would be huge when completed, several storeys high, tall enough to top the castle walls. Loitering soldiers were more than happy to show off their battle lore, answering Justin's curious questions readily. The belfry was wheeled, they told him, moved along by men inside using iron bars or else by oxen, whose traces were run through pulleys attached to stakes, so that as they pulled away from the castle, the belfry moved toward it. Once the wall was reached, a drawbridge was lowered onto it from the top storey of the belfry and the assault was on. When Justin asked how they kept the defenders from setting fire to the belfry, they explained that hides soaked in vinegar or urine would be nailed to the outsides of the structure, but when he asked if that worked, they laughed and said the poor souls inside hoped so, by God. Justin thought it would have been very interesting to see a belfry in action. Not here, though, not now, not if he could help it.

The large siege engines known as mangonels were in operation, catapulting heavy rocks against the castle walls. There was a loud thud as a load hit its target, sending dust and rubble flying. The soldiers manning the mangonel cheered and immediately set about winching the beam down to reload. Within moments, a mangonel from within the castle returned fire, and rocks rained into the army encampment. Men scattered, and Justin had some difficulty in calming his stallion. Dismounting, he led Copper deeper into the camp and began his search for William Marshal and Will Longsword.

He eventually found them supervising the construction of a battering ram. It looked to Justin's eye to be a tree trunk, one of the largest he'd ever seen, being fitted with an iron cap. Nearby a wheeled, wooden, shedlike structure was almost completed; when done, the battering ram would be suspended inside it on chains, swung back and forth until it gained enough momentum to smash into the castle gatehouse door. If John did not surrender soon, that choice would be taken away from him.

"What are you doing here, lad?" Will's smile was quizzical, but welcoming, too, confirming Justin's hunch that he had a friend at court in John's half-brother. "I assume you're not here to fight since you're not wearing your hauberk?"

"No... not to fight," Justin agreed, not wanting to admit that he did not own a hauberk; chain-mail armor was a luxury he'd never been able to afford. "If I may speak with you in private, my lords...?"

William Marshal had given Justin a greeting that was civil but preoccupied. At that, though, he turned to study the younger man and then nodded, for both he and Will knew that if the voice was Justin's, the words were those of their queen. Moving away from the battering ram, he gestured for Justin to follow. "Well?" he said, sounding somewhat wary. "What are the queen's wishes?"

"I face a daunting task, my lords, one that I cannot hope to accomplish without your aid." Justin was choosing his words with care. He'd been given permission to confide in these men, but only partially. "The queen has a spy amongst Lord John's men." Neither man showed any surprise, a commentary both upon the royal court and the woman who reigned in her son's stead. "I must get a message to him from the Queen's Grace. Can you help me do that?"

Marshal smiled thinly. "Why not ask me to do something easy, lad... like teaching you how to walk on water?"

"Well... since the castle ditches are dry, that would not be of much use," Justin said wryly. "I know what I ask, but this matters greatly to the queen. She wants to end this siege quickly... and peacefully, my lords."

"So do we all," Will asserted. "I'm sure we can find a way to get you inside once we put our minds to it."

Marshal did not look nearly as confident of that. "It is your neck," he said succinctly. "Come by my tent tonight and we'll talk."

Justin thanked them both and was turning away when Will called him back. "You might want to stop by the surgeon's tent," he suggested. "Your friend is there ... the under-sheriff from Hampshire."

~~

Will had decided he ought to show Justin how to find the surgeon's tent, and as they walked through the camp, he explained how Luke had injured himself. "... Cut whilst trying to keep two fools from killing each other over a whore's favors. I do not think he was bad hurt, for he was more interested in throttling the culprit than in getting the wound tended to!"

Will laughed, but as they approached the tent, his step slowed. "I offered to take you for a reason of my own," he admitted. "I need to know more about the queen's message to this spy of hers. Does this mean what I think ... that she is trying to convince John to surrender?"

Justin's hesitation was brief. Deciding that Will was entitled to know - he was one of the few who genuinely cared about John's safety - he nodded, and had his decision validated by the look of relief that crossed the other man's face. Will smiled, clapped him on the shoulder, pointed, and left him to continue on his own.

He heard Luke's voice even before he ducked under the tent flap, sounding more irate than aggrieved. Justin assumed the unseen object of his wrath was the surgeon, and as he entered, he found that was indeed the case. Luke was objecting so vociferously that he was drowning out the surgeon's side of the argument, and Justin's entrance went unnoticed. He watched, amused, for several moments, and when Luke finally paused for breath, he said to the surgeon, "It sounds as if he needs a gag as well as a bandage."

Luke swung around with a startled oath. "Christ on the Cross!"

The surgeon took advantage of the interruption to explain that honey and salt were very effective in cleansing a wound, and Luke grudgingly agreed to submit to the treatment, albeit with poor grace. As soon as his arm was wrapped in linen, he made a hasty escape, muttering to Justin as they exited the tent, "Jesu, but I loathe leeches! Once they get hold of a man, he might as well send for the priest and pick out his plot. So ... why are you here? Was life getting too tame for you back in London?"

"I began to worry that you'd get yourself into trouble if I were not around to watch over you... and of course you did."

Luke looked down ruefully at his bandaged arm. "If I had it to do over, I'd have let those louts slice each other up like sausage. Seriously, de Quincy, what has brought you to Windsor? Surely the queen does not need you to spy on John... it is not as if he is going anywhere!"

"The queen has bidden me to get two secret messages into the Castle... one to John, one to a knight in his household."

"Is that all? You do not have to set off on your own for Austria to free the king?" Luke laughed, but stopped abruptly when he looked more closely at Justin's profile. "You are not serious?"

"Yes," Justin said, "I am."

"The queen's spy... would that be the same friendly fellow who communicates with you by throwing daggers at your head?"

"The very one."

Luke whistled softly. After a brief silence, he said, "Ere you left London, did you see a lawyer about making a will?"

Justin was in no mood to appreciate Luke's gallows humor. He made an effort to respond in kind, though, was starting to quip that he'd even picked out a tombstone, when he glanced over, saw that the deputy was not joking. Luke had been in deadly earnest.

~~

William Marshal's tent was sparsely furnished. He was a soldier first, a courtier second, and had only scorn for those who went off to war with all the comforts of home. The meal he offered up to Will, Justin, and Luke was plain fare, too, salted herring and round loaves of bread marked with God's Cross and spiced wafers. The wine was excellent, though, and was poured freely as the evening advanced and the men sought in vain to resolve Justin's dilemma.

"At the start of the siege, they made a few sallies out of a postern door to harry our men, but they've not ventured out in more than a week. Even if they try another foray, there'd be no way to sneak in through the postern. It is too well guarded." Will paused to drink, then looked over at Justin with a regretful shrug. "That road leads nowhere, lad."

So had all of the other proposals bandied around that night. Justin had been shy about offering suggestions of his own, for he had no battle experience to draw upon. But reticence was a luxury he could no longer afford. "My lords... I do not know if this would work, but if there was an exchange of wounded and dead, mayhap I could be one of them...?" He read their silence as rejection and said, "I suppose that was a daft idea..."

"No, lad, actually it was a good one." Marshal smiled approvingly at Justin. "But for it to work, we'd have to take one of the baileys first. Right now we have no bodies to barter - all their dead and wounded are still within the castle. I know, though, of a siege where a similar ruse was played, with great success..."

Memories were soon flowing as generously as the wine. William Marshal had passed most of his life in the saddle, sword in hand. He'd saved Queen Eleanor from an ambush by rebellious barons when not much older than Justin, had gained renown both in the brutal melees of the tourney and in the skirmishing and sieges of the Great Rebellion, the internecine civil war between Henry II and his sons. He'd gone on crusade to honour a promise to Eleanor's dying son, where his exploits almost rivaled the tales told of Eleanor's most celebrated son, the Lionheart. He'd known war in all its guises, and as the oil lamp sputtered and the hours ebbed away, he exercised a soldier's bittersweet prerogative, talking of bygone battles and slain comrades, sharing those stories that had been swapped around army campfires since time immemorial.

He told them of his sojourn in the Holy Land and the constant turmoil in the Marches, and then he and Will began to trade legendary tales of sieges gone wrong. They told Luke and Justin of entire garrisons put to the sword when they refused to surrender, of treacherous guards bribed to let the enemy into their besieged cities, and accounts of suffering so great they had passed into myth. The Siege of Antioch, where the starving defenders were reduced to eating mice, thistles, dead horses, and, finally, corpses. The Siege of Xerigordon, where thirst became so extreme that the desperate men drank the blood of horses and their own urine.

There was an undeniably macabre fascination in such grisly stories. Justin found his attention wandering, though, for it was difficult to concentrate upon past sieges when the present one was looming so large in his thoughts. How in God's Name was he going to keep faith with the queen? Clearly he was on his own, and that was not a comforting realization. He was taken by surprise, then, when William Marshal suddenly said briskly, "Well, back to the matter at hand. How do we get young de Quincy into the castle, preferably alive?"