AHMM, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Into the silence the man said, “Throat's too dry to talk already, eh? Too bad. You should give up. Save yourself, and your family."

  Tom said, “Right, I'll just pop down and open the gate, shall I? I'm sure you and the rest of the king's men would welcome us all back into the fold, no hard feelings. What does King Henry care about a little rebellion?"

  "You don't have to open the gate,” the man said, his tone peculiar. “We're already inside. We've got one of ours in there right now..."

  He let his statement hang in the air, unfinished. It rang in Tom's ears, full of ominous promise. Before Tom could frame a response, the footsteps resumed. They proceeded at the same leisurely pace, headed to Tom's right, past the barbican gate, and onward. Tom poked his head out to look, but the man was lost in the mist. His footsteps receded into silence.

  Tom returned to his stool and sat down. The man's parting remark stayed with him for a while—it and its unsettling tone of assurance—but eventually he managed to dismiss it. Late-night visitors had threatened far worse these past few weeks. Several called up to watchmen and said a saboteur had snuck into the castle somehow and poisoned the well. They lied. Several more promised a ballista was on its way from London, along with more royal troops. Neither ever arrived. No reason to put any stock in this last fellow's promises or the stories others like him told about what was happening at Kenilworth Castle, where other rebellious barons were besieged by troops led by King Henry himself. Although, admittedly, there was the ring of truth to the most recent stories offered up by the taunters here at Colstock Castle. They said the Archbishop of Canterbury stood below the wall at Kenilworth and excommunicated everyone inside. They said he was coming to Colstock next.

  Tom leaned back against the wall behind him and rubbed his tired eyes. He judged it was another few hours to sunrise. It had been a long day. He kept his eyes closed as he reflected on it, remembering what it was like up here on the wall this afternoon. He hadn't been called upon to participate in the fighting, thank God—they weren't so desperate as that just yet—but he did help carry down the dead and wounded. The images flashed in his mind as he dozed: the press of bodies atop the wall, sweaty men shoving and shouting around him, his back and legs aching, sweat streaming down his face, the whisk of arrows flashing overhead, the roiling stench of smoke and blood and sweat and shit, the glint of sunlight on a cauldron full of boiling water as it was tipped over the edge of the wall, the steam rising from the water as it arced down on the attackers below, the hiss of scalding flesh a moment later, the screams of agony. Footsteps, footsteps on the wall-walk, coming near him...

  He opened his eyes to a gray horizon. A man was walking toward him along the wall, dressed in armor and a maroon surcoat bearing the baron's crest. It took Tom a moment to recognize Nathan, Sefton Miller's boy, a member of the castle guard.

  Tom stood to meet him. His bones ached even worse than usual. Served him right for sleeping at his post, he thought harshly.

  Nathan stopped before him. His face was grave. “Tom,” he said in greeting.

  "What is it?” Tom asked sheepishly. He felt like an old fool, sleeping while on watch. He fought the urge to look behind him, suddenly afraid he'd slept through another attack. Of course he hadn't. It was too quiet.

  "I need you to come with me,” Nathan said.

  "Why?"

  "It's your grandson, Dunstan."

  Dunstan—he was another member of the castle guard. “What of him?"

  "I'm sorry ... He's dead."

  A cold shock lanced through him. “Dead? How? Has there been fighting?"

  "No. I ... He was murdered."

  Tom put a hand to the wall to steady himself. Reflexively he muttered a brief prayer. Then he said, “Take me to him."

  * * * *

  Dunstan's body had been laid out in the barracks in the middle bailey. The first floor of the long stone building had been converted to a hospital for the siege. Nathan led Tom past straw pallets occupied by wounded men, most of them still asleep. A curtain was drawn across the far end of the room. Behind it lay the dead.

  Dunstan's family stood huddled over his body—his wife Hannah, their baby daughter, his parents, hers. They all looked up as Nathan pulled the curtain aside. Hannah gave a little cry at the sight of Old Tom, then she resumed sobbing into her hand. Dunstan's father, Young Tom, put a hand on her shoulder as he moved past her to meet Old Tom.

  "Thanks, Nathan,” Young Tom said.

  Nathan nodded in response. “I'll be just out here.” He stepped back, letting the curtain fall closed behind him.

  Old Tom gripped his eldest son's arm. “I'm sorry,” he said.

  Young Tom just nodded. Dunstan wasn't the first son he'd lost, or even the first he'd lost in this war; his oldest, Hyatt, died last year at Evesham with Simon de Montfort, the earl who originally led the barons’ rebellion. It was a pain Old Tom knew too well. As a young man he lost two sons in one year to fever. It seemed like yesterday.

  Together he and Young Tom moved to the bedside. Dunstan was covered to the neck by a shroud. His face was gray, his expression drawn. Old Tom offered his condolences to the others, said quietly what a good man his grandson had been. The rest nodded, not taking their eyes off Dunstan's pale face.

  "How did it happen?” Old Tom asked finally.

  "They won't tell us,” Young Tom said. His face showed simmering anger.

  Hannah's father, Gregory, said, “They say the captain of the guard will explain. He's on his way here."

  Tom digested this, or tried to. It didn't make any sense. Then again, neither did a murder inside a besieged castle. The enemy was supposed to be outside.

  He sat down to wait. He didn't have to wait for long—it was only a few minutes later when Nathan pulled the curtain aside. “You men,” he said. “Come with me."

  Wordlessly, Old Tom, Young Tom, and Gregory followed Nathan to the second floor. In their eagerness for the meeting ahead, Young Tom and Gregory matched Nathan's brisk pace. Old Tom quickly fell behind, slowed by his stiff back and legs. He refused to call out to them as he labored up the stairs. More and more since he'd handed over the wagon-making business to Young Tom a year ago, the whole family treated him like a dodderer. He didn't feel he had the right to resent a supporting hand on his arm sometimes and resent its absence at others.

  He topped the stairs in time to see Nathan ushering the two younger men into a room at the end of the corridor. He was nearing that door when he heard a strident voice beyond it say, “Stand guard without.” Nathan promptly stepped out again—and nearly collided with him. He stepped aside sheepishly to let him pass.

  All eyes turned to Old Tom as he entered the room. He felt the gaze of Selwyn, captain of the castle guard, most of all. Mustached, near forty, Selwyn sat behind a table to one side, glaring at him. His maroon surcoat, stretched taut over a chain mail shirt and sizeable paunch, was soiled with hard use. As Tom moved to stand behind his son and Gregory, shooing them back into the chairs they guiltily started to rise from, he struggled to recall if he'd ever actually spoken to the guard captain. He didn't know. He was much better acquainted with the younger fellow who stood beside and a step behind Selwyn's chair, dressed in a simple black robe, hands folded before him: Father Rowan, the parish priest.

  "Which one of you is Dunstan Wainwright's father?” Selwyn asked bluntly.

  "I am,” Young Tom said.

  Selwyn focused on him. “There has been treachery in the castle. Last night your son was slain. So was Baron Bradburn."

  Old Tom, his son, and his son-in-law all gasped in unison. He put a hand on Young Tom's shoulder—not to comfort him, but to steady himself. The room had lurched at the news.

  "What happened?” he heard Young Tom ask.

  "Your son attacked the baron."

  "What? No!” Young Tom rose halfway out of his chair.

  "Be quiet!” Selwyn snapped. “Sit down."

  Young Tom hesitated. Old Tom was too bewildered to decide i
f he should remove his hand from his son's shoulder or use it to gently push him back down into his seat. After another moment, Young Tom sat of his own accord.

  "It's quite clear what happened,” Selwyn said. “Dunstan was standing guard outside the baron's study last night. They were both found dead inside this morning. The baron was slain by a sword, Dunstan by a dagger. Dunstan lay with a bloody sword in his hand, his own sword by all accounts. The baron held a dagger, bloodied too. Clearly Dunstan entered the room and attacked the baron, and the baron fought back with what weapon lay to hand. Each killed the other."

  "Why?” Gregory said, baffled. “Why would Dunstan do such a thing?"

  "That is the question you are here to answer."

  "My son is no traitor,” Young Tom growled. “He did not betray his lord."

  "Then he never said to you he wished the siege were over? That he wished the baron would surrender?"

  "No."

  The guard captain stared hard at him. Young Tom stared back. Selwyn then turned his gaze to Gregory.

  "No,” Gregory said.

  Selwyn looked up at Old Tom. Tom shook his head.

  "We will ask his wife next,” Selwyn said, looking back to Young Tom. “And his friends here in the castle. We will have the truth."

  "We've told you the truth!” Young Tom shouted.

  "Keep your voice down! Word of this is not to travel beyond this room. Do you understand?"

  Young Tom and Gregory muttered their agreement. Old Tom barely heard. He was still struggling to accept what had happened.

  The baron was dead.

  Selwyn started to say something else. Old Tom didn't hear. In a daze, he turned and wandered toward the open window to one side. His grandson a traitor ... No. It wasn't true. Just a moment's thought showed the absurdity of it. Still, he worried for what the captain's inquiries might reveal. Wishful talk of the baron surrendering was common now among the villagers here in the castle. He guessed it would be less common among the baron's men-at-arms, but surely it wasn't unheard of. They were still human, after all. Dunstan might have had such thoughts. He might have confided them to one of his fellows.

  Tom pressed the palms of his hands against the cool stone of the windowsill. It had been a long five weeks. When the barons’ rebellion began three years ago, the decision had been easy for him and the other inhabitants of Hawleyshire. Henry might be king, but Baron Bradburn was their lord, protector, and provider. Better to rebel against a distant monarch than the man whose castle cast its shadow over one's home. But now the tide had turned. Simon de Montfort was dead, the last of the rebel barons were besieged at Kenilworth, Ely, and here at Colstock, and there was no sign of the support from France Montfort's son was supposed to be gathering.

  Five weeks ago, when Baron Bradburn ordered the villagers to evacuate their homes and join him in the castle in preparation for a siege, they gladly obeyed. Everyone knew besieging armies often razed surrounding farmlands and orchards and even entire villages to devalue their enemy's holdings and deny him support and supplies. As part of the baron's holding themselves, the local serfs knew they might well be slaughtered by the king's men outright. Even so, as the weeks crawled by, Colstock Castle had come to seem less like a refuge and more like a prison. The villagers feared that the fate they had escaped was still waiting for them outside. Increasingly, they believed their lord had the power to save them from it through negotiation and surrender.

  Maybe that would happen now that the baron was dead. Old Tom thought of the baron's oldest son, Edgar. He would inherit the family title, as well as Colstock Castle, its vassals, and environs. He was fifteen years old.

  A new voice was talking behind him. It was Father Rowan. “These past weeks have been a difficult time for us all. But I'm afraid we must accept the possibility that none of us knew what was in Dunstan's heart."

  Young Tom quickly and angrily objected. Old Tom stayed where he was. Suddenly he felt very old. Gazing out the window, he saw that the sun had come up. The castle's inhabitants were up with it. Everywhere people were going about the business of living. His weak eyes could make out men and women lighting cook-fires, snapping bed linens, collecting eggs and chickens from the coops built along the south wall. He watched a woman atop that wall empty a chamber pot into the dry moat, as he had threatened to do last night when talking to the man at the barbican gate.

  His thoughts jerked to a halt.

  "Who's to say someone else didn't attack the both of them?” Gregory was saying in a reasonable tone.

  "I am,” Selwyn said. “I've been a soldier long enough. I know how to read wounds."

  Old Tom turned around. “Someone snuck in from outside."

  Everyone turned to look at him. “What?” said Gregory.

  "I was on watch down at the barbican gate last night. A man came up to the wall. He said they had a man inside."

  Young Tom's expression was blank. Gregory gave Old Tom a look he recognized: It was the one he wore anytime he thought age was addling Old Tom's wits.

  Selwyn's face twisted with contempt. He dismissed the idea with two words: “Wall talk."

  Young Tom rounded on him. “How do you know it isn't true?"

  "This place has been sealed up tighter than a nun's cunt for five weeks. No one snuck in."

  Old Tom looked at Father Rowan pleadingly. “My grandson didn't do this."

  Father Rowan was frowning. “If someone could enter the castle unseen, why would they not open a gate and let in their compatriots? As I understand it, that is the preferred tactic in a siege."

  "It is,” Selwyn said.

  Old Tom didn't have an answer.

  "My son was no traitor,” Young Tom said again.

  Old Tom was still looking at Father Rowan. “You won't give him a Christian burial, will you? If you believe he was a murderer."

  The look in Father Rowan's eyes was answer enough.

  Young Tom muttered a curse into the silence.

  "Will you investigate?” Old Tom asked. “To see if it was someone from outside?” His gaze shifted between Father Rowan and Selwyn.

  Selwyn said, “We know what happened."

  Old Tom set his jaw. “Then I will."

  * * * *

  At mid morning Edgar Hawley, twenty-first baron of Bradburn, addressed the inhabitants of Colstock Castle from the ramparts above the middle bailey. Old Tom listened from a place at the back of the crowd. A sizeable crowd it was, consisting of the two hundred men, women, and children from the village; the members of the castle garrison; and those of the baron's servants who did not stand behind him atop the wall along with his family, knights, and retainers—perhaps three hundred and fifty souls in all, standing shoulder to shoulder in the yard. They strained to hear the young baron's words. They gasped when he announced his father was dead.

  Tom was surprised when the new baron made no mention of the manner of his father's death. Surprised but also relieved—perhaps, he thought, the baron doubted Selwyn's version of events. Hope fluttered in his breast for a moment, but then he thought it through. He could imagine the baron's counselors arguing to keep the truth a secret. Whether the villagers believed that Dunstan committed the murder or that someone snuck in from outside, the effect would be the same: All sense of security would be lost. Those who already grumbled for an end to the siege would shout for it.

  And indeed, no sooner had the gasps and murmurs died down than someone in the crowd yelled “Surrender!” Several others echoed the cry. The young baron held up his hands for silence. He assured the crowd he was conferring with his counselors to decide on the best course of action. For now, he said, they would all remain “safe within the castle walls.” He offered a few more platitudes. Then he turned and headed back toward the keep, with his advisors and knights in tow.

  Tom stood there thinking as the crowd around him dispersed. He had no idea if Edgar shared his father's commitment to the rebel cause. Perhaps he did not. Even if he did, it was now quite clear it was a lo
sing cause. He—or rather, his counselors—might see his father's death as the perfect opportunity to abandon it. But would they be so eager to surrender to the forces outside if those forces had murdered the old baron?

  Clearly there was more at stake in proving Dunstan's innocence. That task was still before him, and he still didn't know how to begin. As he began to walk back toward the hospital, he wondered how a purblind old wagon-builder like him was supposed to solve such a mystery. It had been decades since he was a soldier. Even then he had never participated in a siege. He knew very little of castles despite having lived next to one his entire life.

  But then, he did know a little. And during these past five weeks he'd overheard plenty of conversations between the soldiers. What did they worry about when they thought of someone sneaking in undetected?

  The idea burst into his mind like an inspiration: a tunnel. That was what the defenders feared the most. If someone had managed to dig a tunnel, he had only to find it to prove Dunstan's innocence.

  He considered the idea. Like nearly all castles, Colstock was situated atop a hill. But unlike the castles being built nowadays, Colstock was not a series of circular walls, each enclosing the next. Instead it was laid out like links in a chain. The easternmost link, the inner bailey with its keep and the critical well, sat at the very top of the hill. The only way into it was through the middle bailey, which could only be entered through the outer bailey. Gates in the massive stone walls connected the baileys, each one heavily fortified with an iron portcullis and thick doors of iron-banded oak. The gate leading into the outer bailey from outside the castle was fortified even more heavily, so much so that the entire structure practically comprised a bailey unto itself: It was the barbican, with a drawbridge and a south-facing tower and the most massive walls of all, no less than eighteen feet thick.

  The River Wylye guarded the castle's north flank, running so close along that side its current lapped against the base of the wall—a convenience which had inspired the building of a latrine atop the wall of the inner bailey, hanging out over the river. On the south flank of the castle a broad moat had been dug. It joined the river on the castle's east and west sides, creating a twenty-foot-wide tributary. So effective a defense was this moat that the attackers had been forced to address it first of all. They spent the first week of the siege damming the inflow of water from the east, then filling in the drained moat with dirt and stones at a few strategic places.