Aubrey Maminot waited impatiently while the servants cleaned the cage. By the light of torches, the two men used brooms to sweep the soiled rushes into a pile before putting them in a wooden barrow. The floor of the cage was then sluiced with water. When that was dry, fresh rushes would be scattered. The servants departed with their barrow.
“I thought they would never finish,” said Aubrey.
“Blame me,” said Ludovico. “I banged their heads together yesterday and told them to be more thorough in their work. Romulus and Remus must have a clean cage every morning. The servants will not be slack again.”
“Stand over them when they strew the fresh rushes.”
“I will.”
“They must never be allowed in there alone.”
Aubrey went into the cage with Ludovico behind him. Both were carrying flaming torches. With the floor now cleared of its bedding, the trapdoor was revealed in full. It was very large and secured by two heavy bolts. Aubrey drew them back and lifted the door. He went down a few of the stone steps before turning back.
“Lock it after me, Ludovico.”
“I always do.”
“You know the signal for my return.”
“I will be here.”
“Then I bid you farewell.”
“Good night,” said Ludovico. “Give her a kiss from me.”
Philip the Chaplain knelt before the altar and offered up his final prayer of the day. With an indifference born of repetition, he crossed himself, rose from the altar rail and genuflected towards the crucifix high above him. When he turned to leave the chapel, he was startled to see Gervase Bret standing in the doorway.
“It is late, Master Bret,” he said.
“I hoped that I would still catch you here.”
“I was about to retire for the night.”
“Then I will be brief.” Gervase stepped into the chapel and closed the heavy door behind him. “It concerns the letter that you kindly gave to me.”
Philip was agitated. “Do not talk of it. You promised that you would never mention where it came from.”
“Nor will I. The letter is destroyed. Nobody else will ever see it or connect it with the chaplain.” Philip relaxed visibly. “I came first to thank you once again.”
“Your discretion is all the thanks I need.”
“We require some further help.”
“We?”
“My lord Ralph and I.”
Alarm returned. “You told him of my part in this?”
“Not a word.”
“I have my place here in the castle, Master Bret.”
“I know.”
“Nothing must jeopardise that.”
“I fear that something may,” said Gervase softly. “Though it will not be our doing. The threat comes from within.” The chaplain gulped slightly. “That is why we need your assistance. You have been here for several years. You know the operation of the castle as well as anybody.”
“I close my eyes to what does not concern me.”
“In the interests of justice, I must ask you to open them slightly. You know what I speak of. Three bodies have lain in your morgue this past week. One was that of an old servant who had lived out his allotted span.”
“He passed away quietly in his sleep.”
“The other two were not as fortunate,” said Gervase. “The first was mauled by lions, the second was throttled. Violent deaths in both cases.”
“But quite unconnected.”
“I begin to wonder.”
“Why?”
“Both men were searching for something inside this castle. Both were punished for their curiosity. What were they after, do you think?”
“I cannot say, Master Bret.”
“Can you not hazard a guess?”
“I am the chaplain here and nothing more.”
“Your duty is to the castellan,” said Gervase. “I understand that. You owe your place to him. But is there not a higher duty that overrides my lord Aubrey?”
“Higher duty?”
“To truth. To justice. To God.”
Philip took a step back and glanced around nervously.
“Should murder go unpunished?” pressed Gervase.
“No, it should not.”
“Should evil go unchecked?”
“No,” whispered the other, “it should not.”
“Then tell me about them.”
“Who?”
“Visitors to the castle. Unusual guests who arrive at strange hours of the night. Men whose horses are covered in the sweat of long, hard journeys. Strangers.” He put a hand on the chaplain’s shoulder. “Tell me about them.”
Ralph Delchard waited until he heard the sound of her breathing change slightly. Golde was asleep. Detaching his arms from around her, he rolled her gently onto her back and slipped out of the bed. His mind would not let him rest. Aubrey Maminot was an old and trusted friend of his. The thought that his host might be involved in deception and manipulation was abhorrent to Ralph. At one level, he simply could not believe it. When he considered that murder and even treason might be laid at Aubrey’s door, his brain revolted. It was impossible. A perverse illusion.
Action was the only way to relieve his turmoil. If the castellan was innocent of the charges, then that innocence needed to be established at the earliest opportunity. If he was guilty, then the appropriate steps would have to be taken. He had to find out. Even with Golde beside him, Ralph could not lie in a warm bed and drift off to sleep.
He fumbled for his apparel and dressed as quickly as he could. Reaching for his dagger, he thrust it into his belt. Ralph let himself out of the room, shut the door quietly behind him, then moved across to the candle that burned in an alcove. With its modest light to guide him, he set off down the stairs, pausing every time his weight coaxed a squeak out of the boards.
The apartment was high in the tower and it took him some minutes to work his way slowly down past the other bedchambers, the solar, the hall, the chapel, the kitchen and the tiny rooms where servants slept four to a bed. He could smell the cage before he reached it. Even with its fresh rushes, it retained the unmistakable flavour of Romulus and Remus. He crept up to it and peered through the bars.
Letting himself into the cage, he went quickly across to make certain that the door to the outside was securely locked. Ralph did not want the lions to return and catch him in their lair. Romulus and Remus were truculent hosts. When he was satisfied that they could not reach him, he knelt on the floor and brushed back the rushes, looking for the trapdoor he had seen earlier. His hand fell on a bolt and he cleared the floor around it.
When the trapdoor was uncovered, he knew at once that it did not serve a mere storeroom for herbs. The door was too large, the carpentry too careful. It fitted snugly and firmly in place. Ralph eased back the bolts and lifted the door back on its hinges. His candle disclosed stone steps, which curled down into the ground. He was circumspect. Leaving the trapdoor open, he went down the steps with patient curiosity, using the candle to illumine the walls on both sides of him.
Reaching the bottom, he found himself in a subterranean passage that obliged him to duck as he moved along. After only a few yards, his thigh touched something and he drew back at once, snatching out his dagger to ward off an attack. The candle flame revealed his assailant to be no more than a large chest, set into a cavity in the wall. When he saw the size of the chest and its formidable array of locks, he was reminded of Toki’s visit to the castle. He had come in search of some kind of hoard. The chest was certainly capacious enough to hold it, and no treasure could be more securely guarded than this.
Ralph pressed on along the passage, following its twists and turns until he had no sense of where he might be in relation to the keep. He walked on until he came to a metal door that was reinforced with thick hasps. When he tried to open it, the door would not budge a fraction.
Since there was no sign of a key, he wondered if someone had been through the exit to lock it from the outside. He was convinced that he had come under the castle walls and that the door gave concealed access to the city. The problem of how midnight visitors entered the keep was now solved.