The Jester

But the gates did not open. No warhorses thundered out. He was probably amused at our spineless lack of resolve.

The commitment of this entire army hung in the balance. All eyes looked toward me.

A farmer carrying a broken hoe came up to me. “You have brought us here, jester. How will we take this castle? With this?” He threw the hoe down as if it were a useless twig.

“No.” I tapped my chest where my heart was. “We will take their castle with this.

“Get the raiding party together,” I told Odo. My spine stiffened with resolve. “We go tonight.”

Chapter 111

THAT NIGHT, as most of our ranks dozed, I got together the twenty brave men who would sneak into the castle.

There was Odo and Alphonse from our town, Alois and four of his best from Morrisaey. For the rest, we chose strong-hearted men we could trust, who would not back down from killing with their bare hands.

One by one, they arrived before my fire, wondering, why were they here?

“How do you intend to take this castle with us,” Alois asked, “when you can’t make a dent in it with a thousand men?”

“We’ll have to take it without a dent,” I said. “I know a way inside. Come with me now or go back to sleep.”

We armed ourselves with swords and knives. Father Leo blessed us with a prayer. I handed him the lance. “On the chance that I don’t return.”

“Are you ready, then?” I looked around at the men. I clasped each of their hands. “Say good-bye to your friends. Pray we see them on the other side.”

“Are we talking about Heaven?” Odo asked.

“I was speaking of the wall,” I said, and faked a laugh.

Under the cover of night, we crept away from the campsites and out behind the hutted settlements and narrow streets that clung to the city walls. Torches lit up the defenses above us, [326] lookouts peering for signs of life. We crouched in the shadow of the wall.

Odo tapped my shoulder. “So, Hugh, this ever been done before?”

“What?”

“People like us, bondmen, rising against their liege.”

“A group of farmers rose against the duke of Bourges,” I said.

The smith seemed satisfied. We crept a little farther. He tapped me again. “So, how’d it turn out for them?”

I pressed my back against the wall. “I think they were slaughtered to a man.”

“Oh.” The big smith grunted. His face turned white.

I mussed his shaggy hair. “They were discovered talking under the walls. Now shush!”

We continued, creeping along the east edge of town. In the crook of a ravine, we came across a shallow moat. It reeked, stagnant with putrid water and sewage. It was more of a large ditch; we could cross it with a jump.

At each point, I sca

But where was the blasted passageway?

I began to get worried. Soon it would be light. Another day. There was the chance Baldwin would unleash his warriors to break our will.

“You’re sure you know what you’re doing, Hugh?” Odo muttered.

“Hell of a time to ask,” I snapped.

Then I spotted it: a formation of piled rocks concealed behind some brush on the bank of the moat. I sighed with relief. “There!”

[327] We scurried down the embankment and straddled the moat. Then I pulled my way up the other side. I ripped through the dense brush and began to tear apart the pile of rocks.

The declining pile revealed the entrance to a tu

“Never doubted you for an instant.” Odo laughed.

Chapter 112

THE CRAWL SPACE WAS AS I REMEMBERED-dark, narrow, barely enough room for a man to pass. And shin-deep with murky, foul-smelling water trickling down to the moat.

There were no torches to light our way. I had to trust my instincts against the dark, feeling along the cold, rocky walls. I knew each one in my party had his heart in his throat too. It was like crawling into Hell-cold, pitch-black, odiferous. Floating shit and other refuse lapped against our feet. Moments stretched along like hours. With every step, I grew less sure of the way. After countless prayers, I came upon a fork in the tu

“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 tu

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 tu

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 gri

“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 pi

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

We stripped the guards and do

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?”