James Patterson - The Jester

“We are all right,” I whispered. But I wasn’t really sure. The word rippled down the line. We climbed higher and higher, cutting through the mount on which Baldwin’s castle was built. Above us, Treille slept.

Suddenly a blast of air hit me from ahead. I noticed light slanting onto the wall. I quickened my pace and came to a spot I vaguely remembered. The dungeon. Where Palimpost had sneaked me into the tunnel.

I passed the word, “ Ready your weapons .” Then, with a deep breath, I pressed at the stone in the cave where the light trickled in.

[329] It moved. I pushed it a little more. The slab gave way.

Soon, all twenty men had pulled themselves out of the tunnel. By my reckoning, it was still before dawn. The relief detail had not come.

Two guards were asleep, their feet up on a table. One was that pig Armand who had delighted in torturing me when I was captive here. A third guard snoozed on the stairs.

I signaled Odo and Alois, and each silently crept behind one of the guards. We had to take them quickly. Any sound would be as good as an alarm.

At my nod, we were on them. Odo took the one on the stairs, and as he gagged on a loud snore, wrapped his thick, muscular arms around the man’s throat.

Alois cupped his hand over the mouth of one sleeping at the table. His eyes flew open. As he strained to scream, the woodsman slid a sharp blade across his neck. The guard’s legs stiffened and shook, more of a spasm than a fight.

Armand was mine. At the sound of commotion, he blinked himself awake, befuddled. Clearing his eyes, he bolted up to see his partners slumped to the floor and a familiar face grinning down at him.

“Remember me?” I winked.

Then I bashed him in the face with the hilt of my sword. He toppled backward, kicking the table aside, and landed, mouth bloody, on his back.

He reached behind him for an iron stake leaning on the wall. François, one of the Morrisaey woodsmen, stepped up.

“No need to be so civilized.” The woodsman shrugged and hammered Armand to the floor with his club, stepping on his throat and pinning the struggling jailer’s airway with his huge foot. Armand gagged and choked, flailing his arms from side to side, but the woodsman’s step was like a vise. In a minute, Armand’s arms relaxed.

“Quick,” I said to Odo and Alois, “into their uniforms.”

We stripped the guards and donned their purple-and-white [330] tunics. Then we put on their helmets and armed ourselves with their swords. We dragged the bodies back down the corridor.

Suddenly there was the creaking of a door opening above. Voices coming down the stairs.

“Time to wake up, sleepyheads,” someone called. “It’s almost light. Hey, what’s going on?”

BETTE, THE DUKE’S COOK, had risen early that morning. She had hurried down to the kitchen and by dawn busied herself with her usual task of preparing the morning meal.

She stirred the porridge until it was the perfect consistency. She took down a jar of cinnamon, a sweet new spice brought back from the East, and sprinkled it onto the simmering grain. She fried cured pork over the flame, and it gave off a delicious, fatty smell. She dressed the porridge with currants.

The two guards who stood watch outside the pantry, she knew, were about to end their overnight shift. Pierre and Imo, lazy slobs. This wasn’t exactly crack duty, guarding the royal kitchen when an army threatened at the gates.

Bette knew they would be dead tired, ready for a snooze, and that their bellies would be aching for something to eat. The early-morning cooking smells would lure them like a whore’s scent.

As the sun broke through the early mist, Bette tied up two burlap sacks filled with last night’s mess. Then she poked her head out of the kitchen.

“What are you making? Smells like Heaven,” Pierre, the plumper of the guards, said.

“Whatever it is, the duke seems to prize it.” Bette winked. “And there’s some extra this morning, if I can get a chore done for me.”

[332] “Show us, cooky,” Pierre said.

Bette grinned and led them back through the kitchen. She showed them the two heavy pails of garbage.

“Empty them in the back,” Bette instructed. “Just make sure you captains of war don’t spill them.”

“Pile on those currants.” Imo grinned, hoisting his pail. “We’ll be right back.”

“Of course.” Bette nodded.

She looked out the window. An anxious tremor fluttered in her heart. This was a dangerous line she had crossed, but she had crossed it in her mind long ago. When the duke unceremoniously hanged her friend Natalie as a thief for taking a bit of salve from the physician’s chambers; and when her second cousin Teddy had his flock confiscated and was forced to tend them in the duke’s own pen. She would have gladly poisoned the prick herself, if Hugh had asked.

The two soldiers went in back and emptied the pails carelessly onto the garbage pile, drooling with anticipation of their forthcoming meal.

Behind them, two other soldiers dressed in purple and white stood up and grabbed them by the neck. Pierre’s and Imo’s eyes bulged as they were dragged to the ground.

Bette wiped her hands on a rag. Yes, it was a dangerous line she had crossed… but what choice was there?

She sighed. It was a crazy time when you had to choose between a madman and a fool.

IN AN HOUR’S TIME, fourteen of our men stood about the courtyard, dressed as Baldwin’s own brigade.

The rest kept from sight, concealed behind the dungeon door. Like Bette, three of Geoffrey’s friends had helped lure soldiers into our trap.

Odo and I stood guard at the dungeon door, looking for a sign that the duke was conducting business. Across the courtyard, two guards stood with halberds on either side of the castle entrance. Others crossed back and forth at a crisp pace, wheeling weapons and armaments down to the ramparts.

From down the road, we could hear our own men massing at the city walls-shouting and taunting, just as I had ordered them.

Finally I spotted Geoffrey entering the courtyard. He scratched his head, then flashed me a purposeful nod.

“ It’s time ,” I said, rapping at the dungeon door.

Odo slid it open. The balance of our party, some still in their own clothes, headed out. In the hubbub of people moving about, no one noticed. We made our way across the courtyard. We were joined by the rest of our ranks in Baldwin’s uniforms, loitering about.

As we approached the castle guards, one of them lowered his halberd in our path. “Only military personnel in the castle today.”

[334] “These men have business before the duke,” I said, indicating those not wearing guards’ uniforms. “They have come from the woods and know of the jester.”

The guards hesitated. They eyed us up and down. My heart beat wildly. “We’ve come from the wall,” I said in a firmer voice. “Do you have the time to conduct an investigation when there’s important news to deliver to the duke?” Finally, eyeing our uniforms, the guard retracted the halberd and let us by.

We were inside the castle. I boldly led the group through the main vestibule toward the great hall.

To my surprise, the halls were not as busy as I expected. Most of the duke’s manpower was defending the walls. The times I had been here before, these same halls were crowded with petitioners and favor-seekers.

I led the way to the great hall. Two more guards stood at attention before the large doorway. The duke’s voice bellowed inside. My stomach churned.

“We are wanted within.” I snapped a nod to the guards. I wore the purple and white. We’d made it this far. No one made a move to block us.