Cruel As the Grave

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?"

"I guess that rules out sending him over the walls with one of the mangonels," Luke said with a grin. "I'll own up that I know more about chasing down outlaws and felons than battlefield stratagems. But it has been my experience that even the most diligent guards can be distracted. I remember an incident a few years ago in Winchester, when two whores got into a cat-fight at the St Giles Fair, shrieking and pulling hair and ripping clothes off and drawing quite a crowd, as you'd expect. And whilst they put on that highly entertaining performance, their accomplices were filching money pouches and robbing untended booths and stalls. Now I suppose it would take more than a couple of brawling harlots, but surely we can come up with something equally dramatic?"

"That would be the easy part," Marshal pointed out. "Getting him over the wall is the trick."

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 confessed. "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.

Catching up with him, Justin said softly, "John can wait. The queen cannot."

Durand came to an immediate halt, then spun around to confront Justin, who obligingly raised the lantern so that it illuminated his face. "Christ Jesus!" Durand blurted out, staring at Justin as if he doubted the evidence of his own senses. "What are you doing here?"

It was the first time Justin had seen the other man off balance. "I wanted to return your dagger,' he snapped. "Use your head, man. Why do you think?" Durand cursed under his breath. "We cannot talk out here," he said tautly. "Come with me."

Retracing Durand's steps, they returned to the tower. The ground-floor chamber was empty but Durand continued on into the stairwell and Justin followed him to an upper chamber that was surprisingly spacious and well lighted, with an iron candlestick on the trestle table and several rushlights burning in wall sconces. A flagon and cups were set out on the table and the first thing Durand did was to pour himself wine. He did not offer Justin any, instead said testily, "How in hellfire did you get into the castle undetected? Was that little set-to at the gatehouse your doing?"

"Does it matter?"

"No… I suppose not." Durand leaned back against the table, regarding Justin reflectively. "Why are you here?"

"The queen wants you to do all in your power to convince Lord John that he ought to surrender."

Durand's mouth twisted. "Did she have any suggestions as to how I'm to accomplish that miraculous feat? If I had my way, we'd have come to terms a fortnight ago. Why fight a war we cannot win? It makes no sense. Yet try arguing that to John!"

"Why would he want to hold out? Does he expect help from Philip? Surely he knows by now that the French invasion was thwarted?"

Durand shrugged. "He knows. Let me tell you about John. He is as far from a fool as a man can be. Most of the time, he is too clever for his own good. But where his brother is concerned, that intelligence does him no good whatsoever, for the mere mention of Richard's name is enough to send emotion flooding into his brain, drowning out the voice of reason."

"Is he that jealous of Richard?"

Durand snorted. "Did Cain love Abel? How else explain why we are holed up here at Windsor instead of conspiring against Richard from the safety of the French court?"

"The queen knows it will not be easy. But she is relying upon you to save John from himself — and from others who might prefer that he not survive this siege. She said that if the castle is assaulted and taken, you must see to John's safety."

That was a daunting charge, but Durand merely nodded. "Tell my lady queen that I will serve her as long as 1 have breath in my body." Taking a deep swallow of wine, he looked at Justin with a quizzical, faintly mocking smile. "That raises an interesting point. How do you expect to get word back to the queen? If you think I'm going to help you escape, you'd best think again. I'll risk my skin for no man, least of all you."

"Now why does that not surprise me?" Justin said, with a sardonic smile of his own. "But to allay your concerns, I expect to get out through a postern gate — at John's command."

Durand's eyes narrowed. "Now why should John do that?"

"I bear two messages, one of which is for him."

Durand's hand jerked and wine splashed over the rim of his cup. "You keep me out of it, by God! If there is even a hint that we are connected, John will hang us both from the battlements… if we are lucky. He trusts me now — or as much as he ever trusts any man — and I'll not have your blundering stirring up suspicions or doubts."

"It is such a pleasure working with you, Durand. Do you suppose you can compromise yourself long enough to tell me where I am most likely to find John alone?"

"Well, there is always his bedchamber, although you're not likely to find him alone there."

Justin was startled. "He brought a concubine with him into the castle, knowing it could be under siege?"

"Why not? Sieges can drag out for months. Would you truly expect him to live like a monk for so long… John, who cannot go more than a night without a woman in his bed?"

Durand's smile was so malicious that Justin knew they were both thinking of Claudine. "Tell me where I can find John," he said, with enough quiet menace to make it a threat. "Tell me now."

"Are your nerves always on the raw like this? That does not bode well for your chances of getting out of Windsor alive, does it? But your safety is none of my concern. As for John, you can find him here sometimes, and often after dark, on the battlements. He will spend hours up there, gazing out into the night and brooding-"

Durand cut himself off abruptly. By then, Justin heard it, too: footsteps in the stairwell. They could not be found here together and his eyes swept the room, seeking a hiding place. The only possibility was the corner privy chamber. The footsteps were louder now, approaching the door. Durand would have to delay the intruder while he hid. He was starting to turn toward the other man when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Instinctively he recoiled, but it was too late. The candlestick in Durand's fist thudded into his temple and he went down into the floor rushes as the door swung open.