Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8) (23 page)

William put his heels together, preparing to depart our little circle. “If I may suggest an additional course of action, sire, the guards at all the gates and on the walls should be doubled. What’s more, anyone or anything moving in or out should be carefully inspected.”

Ieuan frowned. “I should have ordered it done the moment we arrived.” He didn’t wait for me to approve William’s plan but pointed at my squire. “Leave this to me.”

William bowed and departed.

I suddenly felt a little nauseous, and it wasn’t only because I was tired and had spent the day with too little food and less sleep. I could easily see Lee sneaking into Dover—without even having to sneak, if he came in on the tail end of a party of workers or in a hay wagon. The man was clearly well-versed in the customs of medieval English society. He could have figured something out.

And Dover Castle was unreasonably huge. It had inner, middle, and outer wards large enough to encompass many football fields. The walls were lined with towers, and the inner ward could have fit Canterbury Castle inside it and then some. The way the stones loomed up around me gave me the feeling of being both safe and exposed at the same time, now that I knew how incredibly vulnerable we were to a single man’s evil plan. Standing in the bailey, the sun warm on my back, I bent my head.

Geoffrey had been watching me, and now he frowned, emphasizing the wrinkles on his prominent forehead and reminding me again of his age and his long relationship with the Crown. “We will keep you safe, sire.”

I looked at him carefully and then gestured with one hand that he should continue. Something about the way he’d spoken had me thinking that he had more to say. I didn’t want to press him, but I needed to know what it was.

Geoffrey breathed in deeply through his nose. “We need more men—today. We need to be prepared beyond the doubling of the guard.”

“The men of Dover have been on alert since this morning,” Ieuan said, “but Sir Stephen should speak to the Portsman again. He could start marshalling every available man tonight, or at the very least, make clear to everyone the high alert and the possible threat—not only from France, but from a traitor.”

“I agree, my lord,” Geoffrey said. “If you wish, I will see to it.”

“I would be grateful,” I said, and meant it.

Geoffrey bowed. “Of course.”

Ieuan looked at me. “Food and sleep for you, sire. Then we need to arrange for armor for you. You cannot go about without it for even another hour.”

I rolled my shoulders, already feeling the weight of the mail Ieuan would put on me. I was used to it, but that didn’t mean I missed it. “Someone else’s armor, you mean,” I said, resigned to at least an hour in the armory to find something that fit me. Given my height and weight, the choices would be limited. My armor had been crafted for me personally. It fit perfectly and allowed me full freedom of movement. Anything borrowed from the armory at Dover was bound to chafe.

“We will get yours back,” Ieuan said. He knew about the Kevlar I wore as an extra layer of protection, and how naked I’d come to feel when I didn’t wear it. Wearing it also gave Lili peace of mind and meant she was less likely to worry about my misadventures. It was easier to convince her I would come to no harm with it on. “At least you have your sword.”

“I have more than my sword,” I replied, shaking off my melancholy once again. I clapped Ieuan on the shoulder. “We are alive. For the moment, that is all that matters. We can worry about our possessions another day. Do with me as you wish. I won’t complain.”

I had to focus on what would move us forward, but I hadn’t even seen my son yet. The sun had disappeared below the western horizon, meaning it might be Arthur’s bedtime soon. Perhaps I could go to sleep with him, crisis or no crisis. I didn’t need Ieuan to tell me that I would be no good to anyone if I didn’t rest.

Then I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and turned to see my wife looking up at me. She’d come all the way from the hall in the inner bailey to find me. “You are asleep on your feet, and I imagine you haven’t eaten a bite since Canterbury. Whatever you’re doing can surely wait until morning, can’t it?”

I thought back over the last twelve hours and acknowledged that the bread and cheese I’d hastily consumed beside my horse in the courtyard of the Archbishop’s palace was the last thing I’d eaten, though I’d drunk water on the road.

I caught the nod Ieuan directed at his sister and knew I was being managed, but honestly, I was grateful for it. Arm in arm, Lili and I crunched across the outer ward to the interior gatehouse. Gravel had been mined in southern England since Roman times, and the builders of Dover Castle had taken advantage of the proximity of the mines to cover the castle grounds with loose stones. Given all the rain that had fallen this summer, without the stones we’d have been ankle-deep in mud.

Once in the inner ward, we headed for the king’s apartments, which Lili had taken for her own. We always slept in the same bed, so she generally left the queen’s apartments for other nobles. Bronwen looked up as we entered our sitting room, where she was minding Catrin and Arthur. “I sent the nannies away,” she said before Lili could ask. “They needed sleep, just like the rest of us. Catrin will sleep with Ieuan and me tonight.” Bronwen had a fierce look on her face. As if anyone was going to argue with her about that.

I stretched. “I should find Jeeves.”

“He is already preparing a bath for you,” Lili said, indicating how confident she’d been that she could get me to do what she wanted. “Somewhere around here are clean clothes he rustled up for you too.”

“Maybe Edward left something that will fit me.” I laughed at the thought of wearing the dead king’s clothes. He’d be rolling over in his grave.

“Hey.” I ruffled Arthur’s hair and then pulled him into my lap, where he curled up with his head on my chest. “How was the ride with Mommy?”

“He slept the whole way,” Lili said before Arthur could answer.

“I did not!” Arthur sat up, all indignant. “I was keeping watch.”

“I’m sure you were.” I hugged him and smiled at Lili over the top of his head. He wiggled to get down to continue his game with Catrin, which appeared to involve a complicated arrangement of beads and cups, like a medieval version of mancala.

“You need to tell me everything that has happened since we left you,” Bronwen said. “While I appreciate you bringing my husband back to me, I would rather not see him if it means you have neither found Lee nor managed to escape the pope’s clutches.”

“I’ve done neither,” I said. “I hope we haven’t simply brought danger to Dover rather than leaving it at Canterbury.”

“Do you think Lee would follow you here?” Bronwen said.

“It is something to fear,” Ieuan said from behind me. He entered the room and closed the door, coming towards his wife and leaning down to kiss the top of her head. They clasped hands briefly. “The castle is locked down tightly.”

“One man shouldn’t be able to pose such a threat,” Lili said.

“Unless that man has a bag of C-4 and knows how to use it,” I said.

“How much could he have left?” Bronwen said. “Canterbury Castle is in ruins. You don’t do that with seven or eight pounds.”

“According to Callum, twenty pounds, set in the right places, was all he needed,” I said.

Bronwen pursed her lips. “The right places being the toilets on two of the levels. With those walls blown out, the upper floors were unsupported and came crashing down.”

“That is how it appears,” I said.

“Did he actually crawl into those latrine shafts?” Lili made a face. Regardless of latrine cleaner Tom’s love of his job, cleaning the latrines was still viewed by most as the worst form of employment in a busy castle, and you didn’t have to be modern to think so.

“It seems so.” I sat heavily in a chair near where Arthur and Catrin were playing. A tray of fruit, cold meats, and cheese lay on the table beside me, and I began to eat, too tired to really taste the food but knowing I needed it.

Lili’s hands found the knots in both of my shoulders and began to work them. My head sagged forward. I might even have fallen asleep.

A gentle knock came at the door and at Lili’s ‘enter’, William poked his head inside. “Lord Callum sends word that he is on his way.”

“Bad news?” Lili said.

William made a very French moue with his lips. “They tracked Lee to a stable where he’d paid to house a horse he bought the day we arrived at Canterbury. He told the stableman that he was returning to London at dawn today.”

“Which means he was really riding east.” Lili gave my shoulders a squeeze.

“Should I still go to Canterbury, sire?” William said.

“Yes. Peckham needs to know what Acquasparta has done. Hopefully, you will meet Callum on the road, and the two of you can confer before you continue on to Canterbury.”

William bowed. “You can depend on me, sire.”

“I know.” What could be done for Canterbury was in motion, and until Lee showed his face, we could do little more for Dover. What I hadn’t done was what I needed, which was to sleep, if I was to be ready for whatever King Philip of France—and possibly Lee—might throw at me tomorrow.

Chapter Twenty-two

A
n earthshattering bang followed by screams beyond the room’s windows had me leaping from the bed and striding to the window. It had been dark by the time I’d gone to sleep, and it was plain I’d slept many hours because dawn had come and gone. Our room was located on a high floor within the great keep, giving us a marvelous view of the sea, the rest of the castle—and the remains of a building in the outer ward that was wafting past on the sea air, sending choking smoke and dust into the air.

“What is it, Dafydd?” Lili sat up in bed, wiping at her eyes.

“Another explosion. Some craft huts to the right of the main gatehouse, I think.” I spoke matter-of-factly, trying to orient myself and to remember the arrangement of the outer ward. The evening before, after Geoffrey had questioned the Frenchmen, we’d talked in the courtyard near the gatehouse. That cluster of huts had seen many comings and goings in that time. I seemed to recall a candle-maker working there, and perhaps the castle potter.

Now that I knew Lee was here, I felt strangely calm, and my heart rate was starting to slow from the gallop that had resulted from being woken so suddenly.

Leaving the window, I scooped up Arthur, who’d woken too, and went to the door.

It burst open before I could reach it, and Callum bounded into the room. “This has to be Lee,” he said.

Setting Arthur down on the bed, I quickly gathered up my discarded clothing from last night. “I’d say so too.”

“Cassie is here as well?” Lili swung her legs out of bed and grabbed a dress that had been draped over an adjacent chair. Like all of us who’d come from Canterbury, she’d had to borrow clothing from others; all her richly appointed gowns were gone. She’d slept in a plain linen long-sleeve underdress and now just had to drop the long blue tunic over her head to be dressed.

“We came here together once we knew Lee had left Canterbury.” Callum tipped his head towards the window. “She’s hopefully on the wall-walk above the middle ward, trying to spot Lee.” He fisted one hand and pounded it into his thigh in a gesture of frustration. “I feared Lee had followed you and felt that my place was at your side.”

“He did follow me, so you were right,” I said. “We locked down the castle last night, but apparently it wasn’t enough.”

“Or it was too little too late.” Bronwen brushed past Callum, Catrin in her arms. Ieuan followed, already fully dressed. Lili and I had slept through the dawn, but we looked to be the only ones who had. Nobody seemed to care that we weren’t dressed, but then, we were family, and this was an emergency. I loved them all the more for how little they cared about my sensibilities.

“Which would be my fault since I was here first and should have been thinking about being followed.” Lili picked up Arthur, and he put his face into her neck, his small arms wrapped around her tightly. “Still, you would think that if Lee could have attacked us in here he would have.”

“I had the same thought,” Callum said. “That’s why he blew up a few huts and not the whole keep—because he couldn’t get inside the inner ward. This explosion is designed to flush you out.”

I stopped in the act of tugging on my right boot. “If the movies I’ve watched are at all accurate, if I were the President of the United States, this kind of threat would call for my removal from the situation. The Secret Service would get me into the emergency bunker at the White House or maybe into a helicopter to take me to Air Force One. Lee would know that. Perhaps I’m better off staying put.”

Justin appeared at Callum’s left shoulder. “There is a passage through the catacombs that can take us out of the castle.”

I looked at Callum, who pressed his lips together, thinking. Then he said, “Follow my logic: I take it as a given that the explosion was caused by Lee. Thus, he is inside the castle. If he is inside the castle, he knows that you are here.”

“How?” said Bronwen.

“A question or two to a serving girl could have told him that,” Callum said, “and he has proved himself adept at getting information.”

“My flag isn’t flying,” I said, “but it’s a weak attempt at secrecy at best. We didn’t tell the inhabitants of the castle to keep my presence a secret, and even if we had, I rode here in broad daylight. The entire town of Dover knows by now that I am here.”

Callum nodded. “Thus, if Lee came to Dover, he knows too.”

Impatient with our conversation, Justin gestured to indicate I should enter the corridor. “The entrance is this way.” He was practically dancing on the tips of his toes in his urgency to get us moving.

Callum overrode him. “Alternatively, rather than draw you out, Lee could be using this explosion as a distraction so he can get inside the keep. Men should be pouring towards the destruction, which might give him the opportunity he needs to go the other way.”

“He could be on his way here even now,” Justin said.

I took in a breath and let it out. “Okay.” I still had my reservations, but I let Justin hustle us into the corridor and along it to the stairs. “I’m not sure about the catacombs, though, Justin. That’s where he’d expect us to go, isn’t it? We should go up.”