Alex Scarrow - The Doomsday Code

‘What business?’ He eyed Cabot’s Cistercian robes and added brother as an afterthought.

‘I seek an audience with His Lordship, the Earl of Cornwall and Gloucester.’

‘He has no time for a sermon.’

‘Tell him his old sword master is here. Cabot.’

The guard’s eyes narrowed as he studied Cabot in the fading light. ‘Stay here,’ he said, before turning away and calling out to one of the other guards to take the news inside.

‘Be hasty,’ said Cabot after him, ‘’tis cold out here and he will be angry when he finds ye have kept his old friend waiting.’

The guard looked sceptically at him. ‘Friend, eh?’ He walked around towards the rear of the cart as they waited. ‘What have ye in here?’

‘Visitors,’ said Cabot.

The guard lifted the canvas cover with the tip of his sword. ‘Ahhh … a strumpet for His Lordship, is it?’ A smile stretched across the leathered skin of his face as he reached a gloved hand out to touch her leg. ‘Ye are a pretty thing for a peasant girl, aren’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Liam, peering under the flap from the other end of the cart. He looked at Becks, and saw muscles tensing beneath her peasant’s gown. The last thing they needed was her twisting the head off one of John’s guards. ‘Becks,’ he said quietly, ‘don’t hurt him.’

‘Affirmative,’ she replied, a hint of resentment in her voice.

The guard laughed at that. ‘Hurt me, would you? Well now … this I would most like to see — ’

Raised voices came from beyond the archway, echoing off the stone walls inside — a commotion within. The guard retracted his hand and nodded politely at Becks. ‘Pity,’ he muttered, then pulled his head out from beneath the canvas.

‘What is it?’

The higher-pitched voice of a younger man. ‘He comes! He knows the monk!’

Cabot grinned like a wily fox at the guard captain. ‘There, what did I tell you?’

The captain stepped back from the cart and stood to attention as the clacking of approaching boots on cobblestones grew louder in the twilight. Presently the archway filled with the flickering glow of a blazing torch and Liam spotted the short squat silhouette of a man with long hair standing in the middle.

‘What in damnation is going on here?’ a voice barked angrily, echoing off the masonry. ‘Let him through!’

Cabot tweaked the reins and the cart rattled through the low archway and finally came to a rest inside the castle walls. The squat figure stood on the ground beside Cabot, a dark shape puffing pale blue clouds of breath.

‘Sebastien Cabot!’

‘Aye, Sire.’

‘Last I heard, you were abroad killing Turks!’

Cabot wheezed a laugh. ‘I tired of such things.’

A young squire holding the flickering torch hurried round the back of the cart and approached them. John’s face was finally illuminated by the dancing amber light. Liam could make out a slender effeminate face, decorated with a wispy beard and moustache that fluttered with each breath, and framed by fine, long, tawny hair. He was smiling warmly at Cabot. ‘Sebastien,’ he said, after looking up at the old man’s battle-scarred face a little longer than was polite, ‘I cannot tell you how good it is to see you again, my old friend.’

Cabot jumped down from the cart and John wasted no time in wrapping his arms round him.

‘’Tis good to see a friendly face,’ added John.

Cabot gingerly returned his embrace. ‘How is my student?’

John released him and stepped back. He shrugged. ‘I am still a clumsy fool. More likely to hack my own head off than another man’s.’ He glanced up at Liam. ‘So … you have a son now?’

‘No, he is not my son.’ He turned and looked at Liam. ‘He — he is here to …’ Cabot was searching for words.

‘What? Sebastien?’

‘Sire, I believe this lad and two more of his friends in the back may help in retrieving the item that has been lost.’

John sighed. ‘So you have heard of this, as well, eh?’

A long silence passed between both men, an unspoken understanding of the matter at hand.

‘Then let us not talk carelessly out here,’ John said quietly. He beckoned Liam to climb down. ‘Come.’

1194, Oxford Castle, Oxford

Liam followed Cabot and John as they talked about old days. They crossed the enclosure and entered the dark and cold interior of the keep’s main entrance. Inside his eyes adjusted to the gloom and his ears rang with the echo of boots on stone as they ascended steps that took them upwards in a cramped spiral.

Behind him he heard Becks’s lowered voice. ‘Do you trust Cabot?’

‘We’ve no choice,’ he whispered. His words seemed to bounce and echo up the stairs towards the monk and John, still talking convivially.

Finally they emerged into a grand hall invitingly lit by an open fire and rings of fat-dripping candles on candelabra suspended from several oak support beams that crossed high above. Liam suspected it was the glow of this hall he must have seen earlier.

John turned his attention to Liam, Bob and Becks. ‘So, Sebastien, these three friends of yours … we can talk openly before them, I presume?’

Cabot nodded. ‘They are to be trusted.’

John waved a hand. ‘You may sit,’ he said, slumping down on a wooden bench near the large crackling fire. Liam noticed, for the first time, how gaunt and unwell the man looked.

‘It is a troubling time,’ said John after a while. ‘I have the people of England in open rebellion against me, I have the barons conspiring against me … all because of the taxes.’ His eyes glistened as he gazed at the flames. ‘Taxes that I had to raise to pay for this foolish crusade of his — and to pay for that madman’s ransom.’ He looked up at Cabot. ‘Believe me … I was sorely tempted to let him rot in captivity.’

Liam leaned forward. ‘Madman?’

‘Sire,’ said Cabot, ‘so … this lad is Liam of Connor. These other two are … Bob and Becks.’

John nodded politely at Liam and, for the first time, acknowledged the support units.

It’s the peasant clothing . Liam suspected that’s how it worked in these times: to be poor was to be less than human; to be no better than the dogs and cats and chickens that wandered this city freely in the dark foul-smelling spaces between shacks; to be almost invisible.

‘You are a soldier?’ John asked Bob.

‘Neg-’ Bob corrected himself quickly. ‘Nay, serr. I be just a normal man.’

Eyebrows rose on John’s slim face. ‘I would wager you could pull a cart as easily as an ox.’

Bob frowned. He was busy processing that comment, trying to determine whether it was praise or an insult.

‘And this is …’ John’s eyes lingered on Becks. ‘ Becks , is it?’

‘She was introduced to me as Lady Rebecca,’ said Cabot.

‘Oh?’ John looked sceptically at her mud-spattered rags. ‘A lady is she, now?’

‘ Oui ,’ replied Becks in perfect Norman French. ‘ Je viens de la duche d’Alevingnon en Normandie .’

John’s cynical leer vanished and Cabot smiled. ‘Yes, Sire, I believe she is of noble birth … but I’ve not heard of this duchy she refers to.’

John tilted his head with a formal nod. ‘ Madame. S’il vous plait accepter mes excuses humbles. ’

‘I am also able to communicate in English,’ she said.

‘Then, please accept my apologies, my dear.’ He gestured at her clothes. ‘It is your rags that — ’

‘We choose not to attract attention,’ she cut in drily.

Cabot’s eyes widened. ‘Lady Rebecca, it is most rude to interrupt His Lord-’