The Doomsday Code

CHAPTER 71

1194, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham

‘What!’ roared John.

Liam looked at Bob, standing beside him. A quick warning glance to him to be ready for anything. There was no knowing how John was going to react to the news.

‘I said it’s gone, Sire. Lady Rebecca took it last night.’

The skin on John’s face raced through several shades of crimson anger, then it drained to a pallid grey. ‘Good God! She was a traitor! She was a spy of Richard’s! She was — ’

‘No,’ Liam interrupted him. ‘No, she is nothing to do with Richard, Sire.’

John’s anger was already spent, gone in a moment, leaving him quivering and looking lost.

‘She …’ John’s jaw worked silently. ‘She … But I thought we were … in love.’ He looked slowly up at Liam and he could see tears filling the man’s hooded eyes. ‘But, do you say she was taking me for a … for a fool?’

Liam couldn’t deny that bit. Yes, she had been using him.

‘Lady Rebecca has taken it to a safe place,’ said Liam. The fluttering of nerves in his own voice had gone. John didn’t look like a tyrant about to order his head be cut off. Liam had expected a torrent of abuse, a face full of royal spittle. Instead, John looked all of a sudden like a child, abandoned, frightened and lonely.

‘She told me to … to be strong,’ he said quietly, a tear rolling down his cheek into the wispy bristles of his beard. ‘For her … you know? I would have been.’ He swiped at his cheek with a sleeve. ‘For her, you understand? For her … I would have stood up to Richard.’

Liam looked over John’s slumped shoulders at the arched alcove and the balcony beyond. In the heat-shimmering distance beyond the walls of Nottingham, he could see the endless rows of multicoloured tents and marquees of Richard’s assembled army, the sturdy lumber A-frames of half a dozen catapults, being swarmed around and finished by carpenters. Like ants at this distance.

‘I have to surrender to him,’ whispered John. ‘I have to capitulate. The longer I leave it … the angrier he will get! He will — ’

‘No!’ said Liam.

John looked up at him sharply, a flash of irritation in his eyes at Liam’s insubordinate interruption.

‘Listen, Sire … if you do surrender while you have no Grail, you have nothing to bargain with!’ Liam didn’t need to finish that thought for John. By the look in John’s red-rimmed eyes, he knew exactly what that meant for him.

‘But, if you stall …’ Liam continued.

‘Stall?’ A word John was unfamiliar with.

‘If you wait. Let Richard think you have it … maybe even threaten to destroy it if he attempts to attack — ’

‘Destroy it?’ John’s eyes looked like they’d glimpsed the very bowels of Hell. ‘Can you imagine, Sheriff — can you imagine what he would do to me? If I … If I were to …’

‘Would he dare risk that, though?’ Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? After all that he’s done to get hold of it, would he risk you putting a candle to it?’

John swallowed nervously. ‘He … he would know I daren’t.’

Liam looked at the man, trembling and pale. Perhaps he would at that.

‘You still have to be strong, Sire. You have to arrange a meeting with him. You have to tell him we have it here — and, unless his army disbands, you will burn it yourself.’

Bob opened his mouth to say something. Liam knew what it was: a warning about time contamination. The way history was supposed to go, Richard’s siege was successful and John surrendered to his older brother. Liam patted his good arm to hush him. John didn’t need to hear that right now, that he was destined to surrender.

‘Buy us a little time, Sire,’ said Liam. ‘Meet with him … convince him that you will destroy it if he attempts to attack us.’

John stroked his chin obsessively, the faint tremor of a nervous tic in his quivering jaw. Liam wondered if the poor man could convince anyone of anything right now.

‘Lady Rebecca will be back, I assure you. She’ll be back with the Grail.’

I hope.

‘And then you can arrange a truce, Sire. You’ll have something you can use to bargain with.’