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-Mre, 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 Franois 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.