Justin had been sprawled out on the floor of the tent, nursing the last of his wine. At that, he sat up. "Can it be done, my lord?" Marshal regarded him pensively. "Yes," he said at last. "But you'd be taking a great risk."
Justin already knew that. "How do we do it?"
"We wait till dark, preferably on an overcast night. We decide what section of the wall seems most vulnerable. The upper bailey has far too many towers, but there are stretches of the lower bailey where a man might approach undetected. A scaling ladder could get you over the wall, provided that no sharp-eyed guard happened by at the wrong time. We could improve the odds for you by feigning an attack upon the gatehouse. Night assaults are rare and would be sure to cause considerable confusion. Midst all that chaos, you might possibly get away with it, but you'd need a lot of luck."
Will cleared his throat. "One of our scouts reported to me that the guards do not regularly patrol the north side of the lower bailey. Whether they are short-handed or think the approach is too steep or are just lazy, I cannot say, but my man claims it is not as well guarded as other sections of the wall." He glanced toward William Marshal, then away. "I did not mention it until now," he said, sounding both defensive and defiant, "because I hoped it would not come to an outright assault."
An awkward silence followed. Will was clearly embarrassed and the other men were sympathetic to his predicament. Civil wars were cruel by their very nature, rending families and setting brother against brother, father against son. Justin finished the last of his wine, remembering something Will had once said, that John had grown to manhood with his three elder brothers in rebellion against their father. In rebelling against his brother now, was he merely following in their footsteps? Was Richard reaping what he had sown? Thinking suddenly of his own father, thinking, too, of Humphrey Aston and his sons, he found himself wondering why some families were like poorly defended castles, offering meagre protection against a hostile world. The queen's army might be able to take Windsor Castle by force if it came to that, but her own family was far more vulnerable to attack.
Setting down his wine cup, Justin thanked Will for that belated revelation. He did not fault the other man for wanting to loyal to the Crown and loyal, too, to his brother. And John? Where did his loyalties lie? Evn more troubling to Justin was the ambiguous issue of Durand's loyalties. Was Eleanor's trust justified? Could a wolf ever truly be tamed? He had no answers to those questions, not yet. They would be found only within the walls of Windsor Castle.
~~
The next few nights were disappointing, for the sky was cloudless, spangled with stars. Justin passed the time watching the assault preparations go forward. The belfry was almost completed, and work had begun on a bore. The battering ram was already done, sheltered behind a hastily erected stockade fence. The day of reckoning was not far off.
Until then, though, the siege continued, the mangonels pounding away at the castle walls, bowmen watching for flesh-and-blood targets, the castle defenders shouting defiance from the battlements. One man was particularly irksome, for after a mangonel had launched a load of rocks toward the castle, he would lean over the embrasure and ostentatiously dust off the wall. The bowmen spent much of their time trying to puncture his bravado, but to no avail. Both sides resorted to fire arrows, winding two saturated with pitch around the shafts, and the castle soldiers made effective use of a ballista, a large crossbow-like weapon that fired bolts as well as arrows. Justin saw a bolt strike one of the cooks in the stomach; he died in agony.
It was an unstable brew, monotony relieved only by sudden spurts of violence, and Justin marveled that there was not more brawling in the camp. But William Marshal demanded that his commanders keep their men on a tight rein, and so far there had been only one killing. A soldier had been stabbed when he found a man rifling through his bedroll. Marshal promptly hanged the culprit from one of the mangonels and that seemed to have a salutary effect upon others tempted toward thievery or feuding.
On the third night, the moon was haloed, and the men knew that was a reliable sign of coming rain. It arrived the following afternoon, a drenching storm. Looking up at the cloud canopy over their heads, Marshal nodded in satisfaction. "Tonight," he told Justin, "you'll go in."
It was agreed that Justin would attempt to scale the wall in the third hour past midnight. Once Marshal thought he'd had enough time to get onto the battlements, he'd launch his diversion, a loud, noisy raid upon the gatehouse. The timing had to be almost perfect. Too soon and Justin would find the walls swarming with alarmed, sleepy men; too late and he risked attracting the attention of the sentries. Following a somber supper with Will and William Marshal, Justin retired to Luke's tent to get some sleep.
After tossing and turning and dozing uneasily for hours, Justin gave up and quietly exited the tent. The air was chilly, the sky swathed in clouds, and light, patchy fog had drifted in, giving the sleeping camp an eerie, ghostly appearance. The weather could not have been better for his purposes, but he was too tired and too edgy to take pleasure in it. Moving between blanketed bodies, he sat down beside a smoldering campfire and stirred the dying flames back to life.
The camp was still but not silent. Sounds carried on the damp tight air: snoring, the crackling of the flames, the jangling of harness and bit as a scout rode in, the low-voiced queries of sentries, somewhere in the distance a barking dog. Gazing into the fife, Justin started when a hand touched his shoulder, then moved over to make room for Luke.
"I could not sleep either," the deputy confided. "The waiting is always the worst. What do you think Purgatory is like... flames and serpents and suffering? I see it as a place where people just sit... and wait."
Luke's commentary had drawn groggy curses from men sleeping around the fire, and they rose, began to walk. "God must truly love you, de Quincy," Luke observed. "Not only did you get your clouds, but fog, too! With luck like that, remind me never to shoot dice with you."
"A pity we do not have a trumpet," Justin said, smiling at Luke's puzzlement over that apparent non sequitur. "I was remembering that Joshua took down the walls of Jericho with a few blasts from his trumpets. That surely sounds better than fooling around in the dark with scaling ladders!"
"I do not know about that. I've had a lot of fun over the years fooling around in the dark," Luke said with a grin, "although never on a ladder! We'd best head back toward the tent, for Marshal ought to be sending a man to fetch us soon. If you need to write a letter, de Quincy, I can get parchment and pen and ink from one of the priests."
"You're bound and determined to make sure I do not die without a will, aren't you?" Justin laughed softly. "I've already taken care of it, and in truth, Luke, it was a humbling experience to realize how little I had to bestow! I told Nell that I wanted Gunter to have my stallion. He saved my life, after all."
"What about me? Hellfire, de Quincy, you did not leave me that mangy dog of yours?"
Justin grinned. "No, he goes to Lucy... and Nell had a few choice words about that bequest!"
"I daresay she did, and none of them bear repeating," Luke joked. "When I suggested the parchment, I was not thinking about a will. I thought you might want to leave a letter for Claudine."
Justin's smile splintered. "No."
"Are you sure? Whether you'll admit it or not, you're besotted with the woman-"
"Let it be, Luke!"
"Why? Think about Claudine. If you die in this lunatic quest, it might comfort her to have a letter-"
"She'll have John to comfort her!"
Luke stared at him, but the only light came from a campfire some yards away. "Are you saying what I think you are? Claudine is John's woman?"
Justin's revelation had been involuntary. But it was out in the open now and there was no going back. "She is John's spy," he said tiredly. "That I know for a certainty. The other is conjecture."
"Jesus God ..." Luke was rarely at a loss for words, but this was definitely one of those times. "I do not know what to say," he confess
ed. "Aldith would say it serves me right for meddling. I am sorry, de Quincy, truly I am."
Justin shrugged. "Now that you mention Aldith, I might as well say what is on my mind, too. Why are you here at Windsor, Luke, when you ought to be back in Winchester with Aldith?"
"That is none of your concern!"
"But Claudine was your concern?"
Luke swore. "I did not go home because I knew we'd quarrel again. Aldith does not understand why I am loath to set the date for our wedding."
"Neither do I. You told me you wanted to marry her as soon as the banns could be posted."
"I do want to marry her!"
There was a raw sincerity beneath the anger in Luke's voice. Justin believed him. "So why then..." he began and then drew a sharp breath, suddenly comprehending. "Is it the sheriff?"
Luke nodded. "He does not think Aldith is a fit wife for his under-sheriff. He has enlisted the Bishop of Winchester to show me the folly of such a union. They cared not that I was bedding her, but they were horrified to learn I meant to marry her and they have made it very clear that this marriage could cost me dearly."
Justin wondered why he hadn't seen it sooner. Aldith was not gentry like Luke, but a poor potter's daughter with a dubious past, for she'd lived openly as another man's mistress before taking up with Luke. In their world, people were supposed to know their place; it was only to be expected that the sheriff's wife would shrink from having to socialize with Aldith. "What are you going to do, Luke?"
"Damned if I know. I suppose I can hope that the sheriff falls out of favor with the queen and gets replaced. Or I might get lucky and catch him in some wrongdoing," Luke said, only half joking. "The whoreson is as greedy as he is sanctimonious and one of these days I might find him with his hand in the honey pot."
"I think you ought to tell Aldith what is really going on."
"Are you daft? How do I tell her that she is unworthy to be my wife?"
"Is it better for her to think you love her not?"
Luke cursed again, helplessly, and then they both swung around as footsteps sounded behind them. Justin's pulse speeded up as he recognized one of William Marshal's men.
"My lord Marshal says it is time."
~~
With Will's "Godspeed" echoing in their ears, Luke and Justin began a cautious, circuitous approach toward the north side of the castle's lower bailey. It was slow going, for they dared not use a lantern. It had occurred to them both that they might become disoriented in the darkness and they were relieved to see a wooden palisade up ahead. The western wall of the lower bailey was the only section that had not been replaced by stone, and it served as a useful landmark, assuring them that they had not gone astray.
The fog was thickening, for they were closer to the river, and the ground was rising. Despite the damp chill, they were soon soaked in sweat, biting back oaths as they struggled to find secure footing on the muddied slope. They now discovered that they had a new peril to cope with. Luke was startled when Justin suddenly grabbed his arm, pointing downward. The deputy flinched, for he'd been about to step upon a caltrop. This was a particularly nasty device for disabling horses, a ball with iron spikes, set so that one was always protruding upward. The slope was strewn with these insidious snares and they began to feel as if they were treading water, so slowly were they advancing. How much time did they have left until Marshal launched his attack?
At last, though, the stone wall of the bailey loomed up out of the fog. They paused to catch their breath and to share a moment of labored triumph. They could detect no movement on the walls. With a brief, heartfelt prayer that Will's scout had been right, Justin gestured and they crept forward. Luke had been carrying the scaling ladder. It was made of wood, hinged to fold in two, with spikes at the end to pierce the earth and hold it steady. It would not reach all the way, and Justin had a hemp ladder to get him to the top of the wall, fitted with hooks to grip the embrasure. It had all seemed possible, even plausible, in the security of Marshal's tent. Out here in this fog-shrouded landscape, his nerves as tautly drawn as that hemp rope, Justin found himself agreeing with Luke's assessment - a lunatic quest.
"Are you ready?" Luke whispered. When Justin nodded, he seemed to want to say more, finally settling for "Do not fall off the ladder."
"If I do, I'm likely to land on you." The fog was swirling around the castle battlements; gazing upward, Justin thought it looked as if Windsor were crowned in clouds. He loosened the sword in his scabbard, slung the hemp ladder over his shoulder, and began to climb. When he was about to run out of rungs, he braced himself with his left arm, aiming for the embrasure above his head. The hooks caught on his third try, but the sound of iron scraping stone seemed loud enough to reverberate throughout the entire castle. Justin waited, scarcely breathing as he watched for faces to appear at the embrasure.
After an eternity or two, he tugged on the ladder and when it held, he slowly and laboriously ascended the remaining feet. Once he was close enough, he reached out, pulling himself up and over the embrasure. Panting, he leaned against the merlon, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. But no footsteps echoed on the wall walkway, no shouts of alarm disturbed the silence blanketing the bailey. Pulling up the hemp ladder, Justin dropped it down to Luke. The deputy raised his hand in a farewell gesture, then set about retrieving the scaling ladder. Justin had tucked a wet cloth into his belt and he used it now to scrub off the mud he'd smeared on his face for camouflage. Deciding to get down into the bailey where he hoped he'd feel less conspicuous, he made his way along the battlement toward the wooden stairway that gave access to the ramparts.
He could see sentries across the bailey, others at the gatehouse. Based upon his extensive experience with past sieges, William Marshal had estimated the Windsor garrison to be about thirty or forty knights and less than a hundred men-at-arms. Those were numbers large enough to give Justin a certain degree of anonymity, for how could so many men know each and every one of their cohorts? But that confidence received a sharp jolt when he reached the bottom of the stairs and found himself accosted by a scowling man with a crossbow slung over his shoulder.
"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded. "Who told you to leave your post?"
Justin considered claiming the need to "take a piss," but decided instead to sow as much confusion as he could. He knew John had a number of Welsh mercenaries among his men, and his years in Chester had given him a smattering of Welsh. So he responded with a blank look, a shrug, and "Dydw i ddim yn deall."
The crossbowman didn't understand, either. Glaring at Justin, he muttered something about "accursed foreigners" and then called to a man standing in the doorway of the great hall. "Sir Thomas! Will you tell this dolt to get back-"
The rest of his words were drowned out by the commotion erupting at the gatehouse. The crossbowman whirled toward the sound, Justin forgotten. As guards up on the walls began to shout, the sleeping castle came abruptly back to life. Groggy men were stumbling out of the great hall, the stables, wherever they'd been bedding down, fumbling for their weapons. No one seemed to know what was happening, but all were alarmed. Justin stood on the stairs for a moment, savoring the turmoil, and then faded back into the shadows.
It took some time for the panic stirred up by Marshal's feint to subside. The garrison had hastened up onto the battlements, making ready to repel the invaders, crossbowmen firing blindly into the fog. By then Marshal's men were withdrawing, but the ripples continued to radiate outward, until the entire castle was in a state of confusion and chaos.
Justin was jubilant. The ease with which he'd infiltrated the castle was energizing and he decided to take advantage of the pandemonium to check out the garrison's provisions. If John would not surrender, it would be very useful for Marshal to know how much food they had left. No one challenged him and he had no difficulty in finding the larders. They would normally have been guarded against theft, but now their sentinels were up on the walls. Blankets were spread out on the floor, and a
lantern still burned feebly. Picking it up, he prowled among sacks of corn and oatmeal and beans. There were huge vats filled with salted pork and mutton and herring, large cheeses, and hand mills and churns. The buttery nearby held enormous casks of wine and cider, jars of honey and vinegar. All in all, enough food and wine to hold out for weeks to come.
Keeping the lantern, Justin ventured back out into the bailey. Men were clambering up and down the stairs and ladders, leaning over the embrasures to yell defiance at the enemy camp. Others were trudging toward the great hall, too agitated to sleep. Justin mingled with them, trailed into the hall, too. So far no one had paid him any heed and emboldened, he roamed the aisles, searching for Durand. Instead, he found John. The queen's son strode into the hall, shouting a name that meant nothing to Justin. He hastily ducked behind a pillar as John passed, almost close enough to touch, and then retreated toward the nearest door.
Out in the bailey again, he decided to take direct action and began to stop soldiers, asking the whereabouts of Sir Durand de Curzon. He got mainly shrugs and shakes of the head, but eventually someone pointed toward a tower in the south wall. Justin quickened his step, and had almost reached the tower when Durand appeared in the doorway. His visage was grim, fatigue smudged under his eyes and in the taut corners of his mouth. Preoccupied with his own thoughts, which were apparently none too pleasant, he walked by Justin without even a glance, heading across the bailey toward the great hall.