Timeline

by Michael Crichton

  “Elégant! Well done!” Oliver cried. He clapped his hands with pleasure, delighted as a young child for the moment. “I am most pleased.”

  He turned to the Professor and gestured to the model. “You know the villain Arnaut lies fast upon our castle, and I must defend against him?”

  Johnston nodded. “I do.”

  “How do you advise me to arrange my forces in Castelgard?”

  “My Lord,” Johnston said, “I would not defend Castelgard at all.”

  “Oh? Why say you that?” Oliver went to the nearest table, took a goblet, and poured wine.

  “How many soldiers did you require to take it from the Gascons?” Johnston asked.

  “Fifty or sixty, no more.”

  “Then you are answered.”

  “But we made no frontal attack. We used stealth. Craft.”

  “And the Archpriest will not?”

  “He may try, but we shall be waiting. We shall be prepared for his attack.”

  “Perhaps,” Johnston said, turning. “And perhaps not.”

  “So you are a cunning-man. . ..”

  “No, my Lord: I do not see the future. I have no such abilities at all. I merely give you my advice as a man. And I say, the Archpriest will be no less stealthy than you.”

  Oliver frowned, drank in sullen silence for a while. Then he seemed to notice the chef, the boys holding the tray, all of them standing silent, and waved them away. As they departed, he said, “Take good care of that subtlety! I wish nothing to happen to it before the guests see it.” In a few moments, they were alone again. He turned to Johnston, gestured to the tapestries. “Or to this castle.”

  “My Lord,” Johnston said, “you have no need to defend this castle when you have another so much better.”

  “Eh? You speak of La Roque? But La Roque has a weakness. There is a passage that I cannot find.”

  “And how do you know the passage exists?”

  “It must exist,” Oliver said, “because old Laon was architect of La Roque. You know of Laon? No? He was the Abbot of the monastery before the present Abbot. That old bishop was crafty, and whenever he was called upon to give assistance rebuilding a town, or a castle, or a church, he left behind some secret known only to him. Every castle had an unknown passage, or an unknown weakness, which Laon could sell to an attacker, if need arose. Old Laon had a sharp eye for the interest of Mother Church—and a much sharper eye for himself.”

  “And yet,” Johnston said, “if no one knows where this passage is, it might as well not exist. There are other considerations, my Lord. What is your present complement of soldiers here?”

  “Two hundred and twenty men-at-arms, two hundred fifty bowsmen, and two hundred pikemen.”

  “Arnaut has twice as many,” Johnston said. “Perhaps more.”

  “Think you so?”

  “In deed he is no better than a common thief, but now he is a famous thief, for marching on Avignon, requiring the Pontiff to dine with his men and then pay ten thousand livres to leave the town intact.”

  “Sooth?” Lord Oliver said, looking troubled. “I have not heard of this. Of course there are rumors that Arnaut intends to march on Avignon, perhaps as soon as next month. And all presume he will threaten the Pope. But he has not done so yet.” He frowned. “Has he?”

  “You speak truth, my Lord,” the Professor said promptly. “I meant to say that the daring of his intended plans draws new soldiers to his side every day. By now, he has a thousand in his company. Perhaps two thousand.”

  Oliver snorted. “I am not afraid.”

  “I am sure you are not,” Johnston said, “but this castle has a shallow moat; a single drawbridge; a single gateway arch, no deadfall, and a single portcullis. Your ramparts to the east are low. You have space to store food and water for only a few days. Your garrison is cramped in the small courtyards, and your men not easily maneuverable.”

  Oliver said, “I tell you, my treasure is here, and I shall remain here with it.”

  “And my advice,” Johnston said, “is to gather what you can and depart. La Roque is built on a cliff, with sheer rock on two sides. It has a deep moat on the third side, two gateway doors, two portculli, two drawbridges. Even if invaders manage to pass the outer gateway—”

  “I know the virtues of La Roque!”

  Johnston paused.

  “And I do not wish to hear your damnable instruction!”

  “As you will, Lord Oliver.” And then Johnston said, “Ah.”

  “Ah? Ah?”

  “My Lord,” Johnston said, “I cannot counsel if you circumstance to me.”

  “Circumstance? I do not circumstance, Magister. I speak plainly, holding nothing back.”

  “How many men have you garrisoned at La Roque?”

  Oliver squirmed uncomfortably. “Three hundred.”

  “So. Your treasure is already at La Roque.”

  Lord Oliver squinted. He said nothing. He turned, walked around Johnston, squinted again. Finally: “You are pressing me to go there by provoking my fears.”

  “I am not.”

  “You want me to move to La Roque because you know that castle has a weakness. You are the creature of Arnaut and you prepare the way for his assault.”

  “My Lord,” Johnston said, “if La Roque is inferior, as you say, why have you placed your treasure there?”

  Oliver snorted, again unhappy. “You are clever with words.”

  “My Lord, your own actions tell you which castle is superior.”

  “Very well. But Magister, if I go to La Roque, you go with me. And if another finds that secret entrance before you have told me of it, I will myself see that you die in a way that will make Edward’s end”—he cackled at his pun—”appear a kindness.”

  “I take your meaning,” Johnston said.

  “Do you? Then see you take it to heart.”

  :

  Chris Hughes stared out the window.

  Sixty feet below him, the courtyard lay in shadow. Men and women in their finery drifted toward the lighted windows of the great hall. He heard the faint sounds of music. The festive scene made him feel even more morose, more isolated. The three of them were going to be killed—and there was nothing they could do about it.

  They were locked in a small chamber, high in the central tower of the castle keep, overlooking the castle walls and the town beyond. This was a woman’s room, with a spinning wheel and an altar off to one side, perfunctory signs of piety overwhelmed by the enormous bed with red plush coverings and fur trim in the center of the room. The door to the room was of solid oak, and fitted with a new lock. Sir Guy himself had locked the door, after placing one guard inside the room, sitting by the door, and two others outside.

  They were taking no chances this time.

  Marek sat on the bed, staring into space, lost in thought. Or perhaps he was listening; he had one hand cupped around his ear. Meanwhile, Kate paced restlessly, moving from one window to the next, inspecting the view from each. At the farthest window, she leaned way out, looking down, then walked to the window where Chris was standing and leaned out again.

  “The view here is just the same,” Chris said. Her restlessness annoyed him.

  Then he saw she was reaching out to run her hand along the wall at the side of the window, feeling the stones and the mortar.

  He stared at her, questioning.

  “Maybe,” she said, nodding. “Maybe.”

  Chris reached out and touched the wall. The masonry was nearly smooth, the wall curving and sheer. It was a straight drop to the courtyard below.

  “Are you joking?” he said.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  He looked out again. In the courtyard, there were many others besides the courtiers. A group of squires talked and laughed as they cleaned the armor and groomed the horses of the knights. To the right, soldiers patrolled the parapet wall. Any of them could turn and look up if her movement caught their eye.

  “You’ll be seen.”
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  “From this window, yes. Not from the other. Our only problem is him.” She nodded toward the guard at the door. “Can you do anything to help?”

  Sitting on the bed, Marek said, “I’ll take care of it.”

  “What the hell is this?” Chris said, very annoyed. He spoke loudly. “You don’t think I can do this myself?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Damn it, I’m sick of the way you treat me,” Chris said. He was furious; looking around for something to fight with, he picked up the little stool by the spinning wheel and started toward Marek.

  The guard saw it, said, “Non, non, non” quickly as he went toward Chris. He never saw Marek hit him from behind with a metal candlestick. The guard crumpled, and Marek caught him, eased him silently to the floor. Blood was pouring from the guard’s head onto an Oriental carpet.

  “Is he dead?” Chris said, staring at Marek.

  “Who cares?” Marek said. “Just continue to talk quietly, so the ones outside hear our voices.”

  They looked over, but Kate had already gone out the window.

  :

  It’s just a free solo,she told herself, as she clung to the tower wall, sixty feet in the air.

  The wind pulled at her, rippling her clothes. She gripped the slight protrusions of the mortar with her fingertips. Sometimes the mortar crumbled away, and she had to grab, then grip again. But here and there, she found indentations in the mortar, large enough for her fingertips to fit in.

  She’d flashed more difficult climbs. Any number of buildings at Yale were more difficult—although there, she’d always had chalk for her hands, and proper climbing shoes, and a safety rope. No safety here.

  It isn’t far.

  She’d climbed out the west window because it was behind the guard, because it faced toward the town, and so she would be less likely to be seen from the courtyard below—and because it was the shortest distance to the next window, which stood at the end of the hallway that ran outside the chamber.

  It isn’t far, she told herself. Ten feet at most. Don’t rush it. No hurry. Just one hand, then a foothold . . . another hand . . .

  Almost there, she thought.

  Almost there.

  Then she touched the stone windowsill. She got her first firm handgrip. She pulled herself up one-handed, then peered cautiously down the corridor.

  There were no guards.

  The hallway was empty.

  Using both hands now, Kate pulled up, flopped onto the ledge, and slid over onto the floor. She was now standing in the hallway outside the locked door. Softly, she said, “I made it.”

  Marek said, “Guards?”

  “No. But no key, either.”

  She inspected the door. It was thick, solid.

  Marek said, “Hinges?”

  “Yes. Outside.” They were made of heavy wrought iron. She knew what he was asking her. “I can see the pins.” If she could knock the pins out of the hinges, the door would be easy to break open. “But I need a hammer or something. There’s nothing here I can use.”

  “Find something,” Marek said softly.

  She ran down the corridor.

  :

  “De Kere,” Lord Oliver said as the knight with the scar came into the room. “The Magister counsels to remove to La Roque.”

  De Kere gave a judicious nod. “The risk would be grave, sire.”

  “And the risk to stay here?” Oliver said.

  “If the Magister’s advice is true and good, and without other intent, why did his assistants conceal their identity when first they came to your court? Such concealment is not the mark of honesty, my Lord. I would you be satisfied of their answer for this conduct, before I put faith in this new Magister and his advisements.”

  “Let us all be satisfied,” Oliver said. “Bring the assistants to me now, and we shall ask them what you wish to know.”

  “My Lord.” De Kere bowed, and left the room.

  :

  Kate came out of the stairwell and slipped into the crowd in the courtyard. She was thinking that she could use a carpenter’s tool kit, or a blacksmith’s hammer, or maybe some of the tools the farrier used to shoe horses. Over to the left, she saw the grooms and the horses, and she started to drift in that direction. In the excited throng, nobody paid her any attention. She slipped easily toward the east wall, and was beginning to consider how to distract the grooms, when directly ahead she saw a knight standing very still and staring at her.

  Robert de Kere.

  Their eyes met for a moment, and then she turned and ran. From behind her she heard de Kere shout for help, and the answering cries from soldiers all around. She pushed forward through the crowd, which was suddenly an impediment, hands clutching at her, plucking at her clothes. It was like a nightmare. To escape the crowd, she went through the nearest door, slamming it behind her.

  She found herself in the kitchen.

  The room was dreadfully hot, and more crowded than the courtyard. Huge iron cauldrons boiled on fires in the enormous fireplace. A dozen capons turned on a row of spits, the crank turned by a child. She paused, uncertain what to do, and then de Kere came through the door after her, snarled, “You!” and swung his sword.

  She ducked, scrambled among the tables of food being prepared. The sword crashed down, sending platters flying. She scrambled, crouched low, beneath the tables. The cooks began to yell. She saw a giant model of the castle, made in some kind of pastry, and headed there. De Kere was right after her.

  The cooks were shouting “Non, Sir Robert, non!” in a kind of chorus from all around the room, and some of the men were so distressed that they came forward to stop him.

  De Kere swung again. She ducked, and the sword decapitated the castle battlements, raising a cloud of white powder. At this, the chefs gave a collective shriek of agony and fell on de Kere from all sides, shouting that this was Lord Oliver’s favorite, that he had approved it, that Sir Robert must not do further damage. Robert rolled on the floor, swearing and trying to shake them off.

  In the confusion, she ran back out the door again, into the afternoon light.

  :

  Off to the right she saw the curved wall of the chapel. The chapel was undergoing some restoration; there was a ladder going up the wall, and some perfunctory scaffolding on the roof, where tilers were making repairs.

  She wanted to get away from the crowds, and the soldiers. She knew that on the far side of the chapel, a narrow passage ran between the chapel building and the outer wall of the castle tower. At least she would be out of the crowd if she went there. As she ran toward the passage, she heard de Kere behind her, shouting to the soldiers; he had gotten out of the kitchen. She ran hard, trying to gain some distance. She rounded the corner of the chapel. Looking back, she saw other soldiers running the other way around the chapel, intending to head her off at the far end of the passage.

  Sir Robert barked more orders to the soldiers as he came around the corner after her—and then he stopped abruptly. The soldiers halted at his side, and everyone murmured in confusion.

  They stared down a passage four feet wide between the castle and the chapel. The passage was empty. At the far end of the passage, other soldiers appeared, facing them.

  The woman had disappeared.

  :

  Kate was clinging ten feet up the chapel wall, the outline of her body concealed by the decorative border of the chapel window and thick vines of ivy. Even so, she was easily visible if anyone looked up. But the passage was dark, and no one did. She heard de Kere shout angrily, “Go to the other assistants, and dispatch them now!”

  The soldiers hesitated. “But Sir Robert, they assist the Magister of Lord Oliver—”

  “And Lord Oliver himself commands it. Kill them all!”

  The soldiers ran off, into the castle.

  De Kere swore. He was talking to a remaining soldier, but they were whispering, and her ear translator crackled and she couldn’t make it out. In truth, she was surprised she had been a
ble to hear as much as she had.

  How had she been able to hear them? It seemed as if they were too far away to hear de Kere so clearly. And yet his voice was clear, almost amplified. Maybe the acoustics of the passage . . .

  Glancing down, she saw that some soldiers hadn’t left. They were just milling about. So she couldn’t go back down. She decided to climb up onto the roof and wait until things were quieter. The roof of the chapel was still in sunlight: a plain peaked roof of tile, with small gaps where repairs were being made. The pitch was steep; she crouched at the gutter and said, “André.”

  A crackle. She thought she heard Marek’s voice, but the static was bad.

  “André, they’re coming to kill you.”

  There was no answer, just more static.

  “André?”

  No answer.

  Perhaps the walls around her were interfering with transmission; she might do better from the top of the roof. She began to climb the steep slope, easing around the tile repair sites. At each site, the mason had set up a small platform, with his mortar basin and stack of tiles. The chirp of birds made her pause. She saw there was actually a hole in the roof at these tiling sites, and—

  A scraping sound made her look up. She saw a soldier come over the top of the roof. He paused, peering down at her.

  Then a second soldier.

  So that was why de Kere had been whispering: he’d seen her after all, on the wall, and had sent soldiers up the ladder on the opposite side.

  She looked down and saw soldiers in the passage below. They were now staring up at her.

  Now the first soldier swung his leg over the ridge of the roof and was starting to come down toward her.

  There was only one thing she could do. The mason’s hole was about two feet square. Through it she could see the bracing beneath the roof and, about ten feet below that, the stone arches of the chapel ceiling. There was a sort of wooden catwalk running over the arches.

  Kate crawled through the hole, and dropped down to the ceiling below. She smelled the sour odor of dust and bird droppings. There were nests everywhere, along the flat walkways, in the corners and joists. She ducked as a few sparrows flew past her head, chittering. And suddenly, she was engulfed in a swirling tornado of shrieking birds and flying feathers. There were hundreds in here, she realized, and she had disturbed them. For a moment she could do nothing except put her arms over her face and stand quietly. The sounds lessened.