Timeline (42 page)

“Maybe the paces are still too large,” Chris said.

“Or too small.”

Chris went over, stood next to her by the wall. “Come on, we’ll figure it out.”

“Do you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

They stepped away from the wall and had started back to the doorway when they heard a low rumbling sound behind them. A large stone in the floor, right where they had been standing, had now slid away. They saw stone steps leading downward. They heard the distant rush of a river. The opening gaped black and ominous.

“Bingo,” he said.

03:10:12

In the windowless control room above the transit pad, Gordon and Stern stared at the monitor screen. It showed an image of five panels, representing the five glass containers that had been etched. As they watched, small white dots appeared on the panels.

“That’s the position of the etch points,” Gordon said.

Each point was accompanied by a cluster of numbers, but they were too small to read.

“That’s the size and depth of each etching,” Gordon said.

Stern said nothing. The simulation continued. The panels began to fill with water, represented by a rising horizontal blue line. Superimposed on each panel were two large numbers: the total weight of the water and the pressure per square inch on the glass surface, at the bottom of each panel, where the pressure was greatest.

Even though the simulation was highly stylized, Stern found himself holding his breath. The waterline went higher, and higher.

One tank began to leak: a flashing red spot.

“One leaking,” Gordon said.

A second tank began to leak, and as the water continued to rise, a jagged lightning streak crossed the panel, and it vanished from the screen.

“One shattered.”

Stern was shaking his head. “How rough do you think this simulation is?”

“Pretty fast and dirty.”

On the screen, a second tank shattered. The final two filled to the top without incident.

“So,” Gordon said. “The computer’s telling us three out of five panels can’t be filled.”

“If you believe it. Do you?”

“Personally, I don’t,” Gordon said. “The input data’s just not good enough, and the computer is making all kinds of stress assumptions that are pretty hypothetical. But I think we better fill those tanks at the last minute.”

Stern said, “It’s too bad there isn’t a way to strengthen the tanks.”

Gordon looked up quickly. “Like what?” he said. “You have an idea?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could fill the etchings with plastic, or some kind of putty. Or maybe we could—”

Gordon was shaking his head. “Whatever you do, it has to be uniform. You’d have to cover the entire surface of the tank evenly. Perfectly evenly.”

“I can’t see any way to do that,” Stern said.

“Not in three hours,” Gordon said. “And that’s what we have left.”

Stern sat down in a chair, frowning. For some reason, he was thinking of racing cars. A succession of images flashed through his mind. Ferraris. Steve McQueen. Formula One. The Michelin Man with his rubber tube body. The yellow Shell sign. Big truck tires, hissing in rain. B. F. Goodrich.

He thought, I don’t even like cars. Back in New Haven, he owned an ancient VW Bug. Clearly, his racing mind was trying to avoid an unpleasant reality — something he didn’t want to face up to.

The risk.

“So we just fill the panels at the last minute, and pray?” Stern said.

“Exactly,” Gordon said. “That’s exactly what we do. It’s a little hairy. But I think it’ll work.”

“And the alternative?” Stern said.

Gordon shook his head. “Block their return. Don’t let your friends come back. Get brand new glass panels down here, panels that don’t have imperfections, and set up again.”

“And that takes how long?”

“Two weeks.”

“No,” Stern said. “We can’t do that. We have to go for it.”

“That’s right,” Gordon said. “We do.”

02:55:14

Marek and Johnston climbed the circular stairs. At the top, they met de Kere, who was looking smugly satisfied. They stood once more on the wide battlements of La Roque. Oliver was there, pacing, red-faced and angry.

“Do you smell it?” he cried, pointing off toward the field, where Arnaut’s troops continued to mass.

It was now early evening; the sun was down, and Marek guessed it must be about six o’clock. But in the fading light, they saw that Arnaut’s forces now had a full dozen trebuchets assembled and set out in staggered rows on the field below. After the example of the first incendiary arrow, they had moved their engines farther apart, so that any fire would not spread beyond one engine.

Beyond the trebuchets, there was a staging area, with troops huddled around smoking fires. And at the very rear, the hundreds of tents of the soldiers nestled back against the dark line of the forest.

It looked, Marek thought, perfectly ordinary. The start of a siege. He couldn’t imagine what Oliver was upset about.

A distinct burning odor drifted toward them from the smoking fires. It reminded Marek of the smell that roofers made. And with good reason: it was the same substance. “I do, my Lord,” Johnston said. “It is pitch.”

Johnston’s blank expression conveyed that he, too, did not know why Oliver was so upset. It was standard practice in siege warfare to lob burning pitch over the castle walls.

“Yes, yes,” Oliver said, “it is pitch. Of course it is pitch. But that is not all. Do you not smell it? They are mixing something with the pitch.”

Marek sniffed the air, thinking Oliver was almost certainly right. When burning, pure pitch had a tendency to go out. Thus pitch was usually combined with other substances — oil, tow or sulfur — to make a more robustly burning mixture.

“Yes, my Lord,” Johnston said. “I smell it.”

“And what is it?” Oliver said in an accusing tone.

“Ceraunia, I believe.”

“Also called the ‘thunderbolt stone’?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And do we also employ this thunderbolt stone?”

“No, my Lord—” Johnston began.

“Ah! I thought as much.”

Oliver was now nodding to de Kere, as if their suspicions were confirmed. Clearly, de Kere was behind all this.

“My Lord,” Johnston said, “we have no need of the thunderbolt stone. We have better stone. We use pure sulfure.”

“But sulfure is not the same.” Another glance at de Kere.

“My Lord, it is. The thunderbolt stone is pyrite kerdonienne. When ground fine, it makes sulfure.”

Oliver snorted. He paced. He glowered.

“And how,” he said finally, “does Arnaut come to have this thunderbolt stone?”

“I cannot say,” Johnston said, “but the thunderbolt stone is well known to soldiers. It is even mentioned in Pliny.”

“You evade me with tricks, Magister. I speak not of Pliny. I speak of Arnaut. The man is an illiterate pig. He knows nothing of ceraunia, or the thunderbolt stone.”

“My Lord—”

“Unless he is aided,” Oliver said darkly. “Where are your assistants now?”

“My assistants?”

“Come, come, Magister, evade me no further.”

“One is here,” Johnston said, gesturing to Marek. “I am given that the second is dead, and I have no word of the third.”

“And I believe,” Oliver said, “that you know very well where they are. They are both working in the camp of Arnaut, even as we speak. That is how he comes to possess this arcane stone.”

Marek listened to this with a growing sense of unease. Oliver had never seemed mentally stable, even in better times. Now, faced with impending attack, he was becoming openly paranoid — goaded by de Kere. Oliver seemed unpredictable, and dangerous.

“My Lord—” Johnston began.

“And further, I believe what I suspected from the first! You are the creature of Arnaut, for you have passed three days in Sainte-Mère, and the Abbot is the creature of Arnaut.”

“My Lord, if you will hear—”

“I will not! You shall hear. I believe you work against me, that you, or your assistants, know the secret entrance to my castle, despite all your protestations, and that you plan to escape at the earliest moment — perhaps even tonight, under cover of Arnaut’s attack.”

Marek was carefully expressionless. That was, of course, exactly what they intended, if Kate ever found the entrance to the passage.

“Aha!” Oliver said, pointing at Marek. “You see? His jaw clenches. He knows what I say is true.”

Marek started to speak, but Johnston put a restraining hand on his arm. The Professor said nothing himself, just shook his head.

“What? Will you stop his confession?”

“No, my Lord, for your surmises are not true.”

Oliver glowered, paced. “Then bring me the weapons I bade you make earlier.”

“My Lord, they are not ready.”

“Ha!” Another nod to de Kere.

“My Lord, the grinding of the powder takes many hours.”

“In many hours, it will be too late.”

“My Lord, it will be in good time.”

“You lie, you lie, you lie!” Oliver spun, stamped his foot, stared off at the siege engines. “Look to the plain. See how they make ready. Now answer me, Magister. Where is he?”

There was a pause. “Where is who, my Lord?”

“Arnaut! Where is Arnaut? His troops mass for attack. He always leads them. But now he is not there. Where is he?”

“My Lord, I cannot say. . . .”

“The witch of Eltham is there — see her, standing by the engines? You see? She watches us. The damnable woman.”

Marek turned quickly to look. Claire was indeed down among the soldiers, walking with Sir Daniel at her side. Marek felt his heart beat faster, just to see her, though he was not sure why she would walk so near the siege lines. She was looking up at the walls. And suddenly she stopped abruptly. And he thought, with a kind of certainty, that she had seen him. He had an almost irresistible impulse to wave, but of course he did not. Not with Oliver snorting and puffing beside him. But he thought, I’m going to miss her when I go back.

“The Lady Claire,” Oliver growled, “is a spy of Arnaut and was so from the beginning. She let his men into Castelgard. All arranged, no doubt, with that scheming Abbot. But where is the villain himself? Where is the pig Arnaut? Nowhere to be seen.”

There was an awkward silence. Oliver smiled grimly.

“My Lord,” Johnston began, “I understand your concer—”

“You do not!” He stamped his foot and glared at them. Then, “Both of you. Come with me.”

:

The surface of the water was black and oily, and even looking down from thirty feet above, it stank. They were standing beside a circular pit, located deep in the bowels of the castle. All around them, the walls were dark and damp, barely illuminated by flickering torches.

At Oliver’s signal, a soldier beside the pit started to crank an iron winch. Clattering, a thick chain began to rise from the depths of the water.

“They call this Milady’s Bath,” Oliver said. “It was made by François le Gros, who had a taste for these things. They say Henri de Renaud was kept here for ten years before he died. They threw live rats down to him, which he killed and ate raw. For ten years.”

The water rippled, and a heavy metal cage broke the surface and began to rise, dripping, into the air. The bars were black and filthy. The stench was overpowering.

Watching it rise, Oliver said, “In Castelgard I promised you, Magister, that if you deceived me, I would kill you. You shall bathe in Milady’s Bath.”

He looked at them intently, his eyes wild.

“Confess now.”

“My Lord, there is nothing to confess.”

“Then you have nothing to fear. But hear this, Magister. If I discover that you, or your assistants, know the entrance to this castle, I shall lock you away in this place, from which you will never escape, never in your life, and I will leave you here, in darkness, to starve and rot forever.”

Holding a torch in the corner, Robert de Kere allowed himself a smile.

02:22:13

The steps led steeply downward, into darkness. Kate went first, holding the torch. Chris followed. They went through a narrow passage, almost a tunnel, that seemed to be man-made, and then came out into a much larger chamber. This was a natural cave. Somewhere high up and off to the left, they saw the pale glimmer of natural light; there had to be a cave entrance up there.

The ground before them still sloped down. Ahead, she saw a large pool of black water and heard the rush of a river. The interior smelled strongly of a sweet-sour odor, like urine. She scrambled over the boulders until she reached the black pool. There was a little sandy margin around the edge of the water.

And in the sand, she saw a footprint.

Several footprints.

“Not recent,” Chris said.

“Where’s the path?” she said. Her voice echoed. Then she saw it, off to the left, a protruding section of rock wall that had been artificially cut back, making an indentation that allowed you to skirt around the pool and to pass by.

She started forward.

Caves didn’t bother her. She’d been in several in Colorado and New Mexico with her rock-climbing friends. Kate followed the path, seeing footprints here and there, and pale streaks in the rock that might have been scratches from weapons.

“You know,” she said, “this cave can’t be all that long if people used it to carry water to the castle during a siege.”

“But they didn’t,” Chris said. “The castle has another supply of water. They would have been bringing food, or other supplies.”

“Even so. How far could they go?”

“In the fourteenth century,” Chris said, “peasants didn’t think anything about walking twenty miles a day, and sometimes more. Even pilgrims walked twelve or fifteen miles in a day, and those groups included women and old people.”

“Oh,” she said.

“This passage could be ten miles,” he said. And then he added, “But I hope it’s not.”

Once past the protruding rock, they saw a cut passage leading away from the dark lake. The passage was about five feet high and three feet wide. But at the edge of the dark pool, a wooden boat was tied up. A small boat, like a rowboat. It thunked softly against the rocks.

Kate turned. “What do you think? Walk, or take the boat?”