The constable immediately summoned everyone down into the large bailey and led them across into the refectory, where tired-faced servants served us fresh milk and strips of yesterday’s bread. We gathered around the tables as Warde shouted questions no one could answer. The ringing of the tocsin, the lighting of the beacon fire and the rumours that had swept the fortress about the king approaching — or was it the earls? — could not be explained. The constable, red-faced with anger, stalked out. We and the rest drifted back to our own chambers.
The real cause for the alarm was revealed in all its horror the next morning. A servant hastened into the chapel garden to breathlessly inform me, Demontaigu and Dunheved that John Rosselin, God save his soul, squire to Lord Gaveston, had been found dead outside Queen’s Tower. He took us across the bailey and around the donjon to the rocky incline that stretched about its base. Rosselin lay sprawled, gashed and saturated in his own blood, on the sharp cobbles. Gruesome bruises marked his face. The right side of his skull was completely staved in, like the wood of a broken cask. He was dressed in a soiled shirt, hose and boots, arms and legs grotesquely twisted. The dagger sheath on his war-belt was empty, the knife driven deep into his left side up under his ribs. The constable and Ap Ythel let me through. I turned the corpse over, peered at the blood-encrusted mask of Rosselin’s face then felt his hands and neck.
‘He’s been dead some time,’ I declared. I followed the constable’s direction and stared up at the window high above us, even as I heard the dull thudding from the keep.
‘He fell from his chamber window; he must have done,’ the constable murmured.
‘My men are trying to break down the door,’ Ap Ythel explained.
Dunheved asked Demontaigu to look after the corpse whilst we went up into the keep. We reached the stairwell to Rosselin’s chamber just as the door, locked from the inside, buckled and splintered. The men grasping the makeshift battering ram pounded it until it snapped loose of lock and hinge and crashed inwards. We clambered over it into the room. The large window, deep in its embrasure, was unshuttered. A desolate, untidy room, still reeking of Rosselin’s sad spirit. The table was littered with cups and dirty platters. Scraps of parchments were strewn on the bed, its sweat-soiled linen sheets all twisted. A cloak lay on the floor. On a stool next to the bed was the key, a pair of beads, a brooch and two leather wrist guards.
‘I’ll collect everything,’ Dunheved whispered. He picked up a wicker basket and crossed to the bed.
I stared around at the dirty plaster, the recess leaning into the latrine, the arrow loops in the wall. I crossed to the window embrasure and glimpsed the blood, dry and sticky, on the dark stone sill. I traced it back along the floor to the centre of the chamber, just where the cloak lay. The room had fallen silent except for Dunheved filling that basket, and the laboured breathing of the men who’d forced the door. A prickle of fear cooled my own sweat. The constable and Ap Ythel, who’d now joined us, were thinking what Dunheved was whispering about. The angel of death and all his minions from the meadows of hell had visited this chamber. Rosselin had certainly been murdered, his body picked up and hurled from that window, but why, by whom and how? Ap Ythel went out into the stairwell to talk to a comrade in the sing-song tongue of their own country. The constable checked the door and its shattered lock. It was futile to ask about secret entrances or someone climbing up the sheer face of that keep and forcing an entry through the window.
‘Something evil,’ the constable declared. ‘Some malignancy fastened on Rosselin.’ He went and sat down on the bed, his face all miserable. Warde was a seasoned veteran and I recognised his expression: a man who would do his duty but one who also realised when he could do no more.
‘Our strength has been sapped from within,’ the constable murmured. ‘What happened here? Gaveston,’ he checked himself, ‘my lord Gaveston will want to know.’
‘The tocsin,’ I replied. ‘This was the assassin’s real purpose, but wasn’t there a guard. .?’
‘Goronwy Ap Rees,’ the captain of the archers sang out as he came back into the room, ‘one of my best men. He was on guard outside last night. He admits he was dozing. He was aroused by the alarm, as was Rosselin, who came and lifted the door shutter. Ap Rees did not know what to do until a voice at the bottom of the stairs shouted that a royal army was approaching the castle and every man was needed on the battlements. Ap Rees left. He heard Rosselin yelling questions behind him but he concluded that if Gaveston’s henchman wanted to know what was happening, he was free to join him.’
‘So the keep was deserted?’ I declared. ‘The assassin must have rung that tocsin, lit the fire and come here. Somehow he persuaded Rosselin to open the door, then stabbed him, dragged his body across to that embrasure and hurled it from the window.’ I paused. ‘Swift as a cat pouncing on a mouse. Rosselin was befuddled, mawmsy with drink.’
‘Yet whom would Rosselin admit?’ Demontaigu asked.
‘More importantly,’ Warde declared, ‘and word of this will spread through the castle, how did the assassin leave through a door locked from within?’
I couldn’t answer. I crossed to the basket Dunheved had placed on the floor, took out the key and went to the battered door. The key fitted the lock, rusting and ancient though now all buckled
‘I have found it.’ Demontaigu’s voice rang clear from the stairwell. He came into the chamber clutching a scrap of parchment and handed it to me. It bore the expected message: Aquilae Petri, fly not so bold, for Gaveston your master has been both bought and sold.
‘Tucked under the cuff of his jerkin,’ Demontaigu added.
‘I had best tell my lord Gaveston.’ The constable got to his feet and strode out. The rest followed.
Demontaigu sat on a stool, mopping his brow. Dunheved stood by the window with his back to us.
‘We should go,’ he declared, ‘from this place of blood.’
‘No, no,’ I whispered. ‘Let us first search Rosselin’s possessions.’
We did so, but discovered nothing of significance. Demontaigu informed me that Rosselin’s corpse had been taken to the castle death house.
‘His soul has gone to God.’ Dunheved was still staring out of the window. ‘Mathilde, shouldn’t we go?’ He turned to face me. ‘It’s time we left here. There’s nothing more we can do. This is a lost cause. What is the point in staying?’
I didn’t answer. A few hours later we were given no choice but to remain. Early that afternoon the tocsin was sounded, booming out the truth. The earls had arrived! First their outriders, horses raising dust clouds beyond the town, then a stream of colour: pennants, banners and standards flapping in the sea breeze, a host of many hues: red, argent, blue, green, scarlet, white and black. The devices and insignia boldly proclaimed the power of England: gules, shields, bears and boars, wyverns and lions, greyhounds, crowns and swords. The earls’ army camped beyond the town, a brilliant sea of shifting colours as pavilions, tents, bothies and horse lines were set up. The noise and smell of this great host wafted towards us, then, like a river breaking its banks, the enemy troops spilled out of the camp, threading through the narrow streets of the town and washing around the base of the castle and down to the port. I stood on the battlements with the rest. My heart sank. The earls had mustered a great host. This was the season for war. The lanes, tracks and roads were dry-hard, making easy passage for their foot, horses and carts, whilst the surrounding countryside was well stocked with provisions. They were quickly accepted by the townspeople. Order seemed good, discipline imposed. We even heard cheering as the citizens greeted the passing troops. If the earls wished to impress us, they certainly succeeded. Mail and armour flashed in the sunlight, the shimmering threat of what we were to expect. Worse was to come. Behind the troops, black and fearsome against the sky, trundled the terrible engines of war: trebuchets, slings, battering rams, mantlets, catapults and massive siege towers. The latter moved slowly, edging towards us like hideous monsters from the deepest pit. Once they reached the castle walls, the siege would be over.