The Doomsday Code

‘You’re lying!’ someone shouted. ‘You are John’s man!’

Others in the crowd murmured their agreement. Liam could see none of them was going to believe a single word he uttered. ‘You better tell them,’ he whispered to Bob.

‘HE IS TELLING THE TRUTH!’ barked Bob. ‘RECOMMENDATION: LEAVE THIS CAMP IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN TO YOUR HOMES! KING RICHARD IS COMING AND WILL KILL YOU ALL!’

The wood was suddenly filled with raised voices, all speaking at once.

Through the crowd, on one side of the clearing, Liam spotted a solitary malnourished horse, tied to a tree and staring listlessly out at the noise and commotion in front of it. He nudged Bob gently. ‘Over there. Do you see it?’

‘Affirmative.

‘I WILL NOW LEAVE WITH THE SHERIFF. YOU WILL ALL BE PARDONED!’

Bob led the way, dragging Liam with him by the arm. The crowd was beginning to break up into knots of people arguing with each other — some determined to stay here, some wanting to go home. An old man reached out for Bob, his hands grasping at his cape. ‘Please don’t leave! We follow you! We came here to follow you!’

Liam glanced up at Bob. He couldn’t see Bob’s eyes beneath the shadow of the hood, but a gentle tip of his head assured Liam he had an answer. ‘It is over, old man! There will be no uprising now. You must go home!’

With that he grabbed Liam by the arm again and pulled him forward through the milling crowd.

But the old man was not to be shaken off so easily. ‘You cannot leave us now! We have nothing! We have — ’ He grasped at the cape again, but this time the old man’s frail hand grasped at material further up the cape and as Bob stepped away the hood pulled back off his face and flapped down on to his shoulders.

The effect was instant. A silence once more; arguments momentarily forgotten, voices hushed and eyes growing ever wider as they stared at his face.

‘’Tis the man who was here earlier!’

‘A trick!’ someone else cried out. ‘To rescue the sheriff!’

Liam jabbed Bob in the ribs. ‘Run!’

Bob’s one good arm stretched out and snatched a longbow from the hands of a young man standing nearby. He swiped it around, smacking the heads of half a dozen of those too slow to duck. And then the pair of them were running for the horse.

Liam’s bare feet stumbled through the embers of a fire, kicking up a shower of sparks. He yelped and hopped as those nearby frantically brushed off and patted down embers on their dry rags and lank hair. Liam was still hopping and yelping as Bob tossed the longbow aside, scooped him up under his arm and a moment later hurled him over the rear of the horse. The animal bucked and complained at the sudden load deposited on its back.

Bob snapped the horse’s tether from the tree with a savage jerk and then swung a leg over. With a brutal kick of heels into its flank he startled the horse forward into the crowd, knocking aside hands reaching out to grasp the reins and wrest the horse from their control.

They clattered through the rest of the camp, the horse’s hooves kicking aside the frail wooden frames of tents and hovels, people lurching back out of their way at the last moment. Curses and stones whistling through the air at them. And then they were on the narrow forest track.

CHAPTER 64

1194, Nottingham

John stared with utter bemusement at the people in the marketplace. They respectfully made a pathway for his escort of soldiers and the two dozen carts and wagons containing his baggage and essential royal staff of servants.

‘I do believe they’re … uhh … they’re cheering for me,’ he uttered to Becks.

She rode on horseback beside him, side-saddle rather than astride. Dressed in fine linens that fluttered lightly and gracefully. ‘Yes, my lord, it appears they are.’

‘That makes a rather pleasant change,’ he murmured, self-consciously waggling a limp hand back at the people. They roared approval at the simple gesture.

Leaving Oxford hadn’t been quite so pleasant. John had felt compelled, for his own safety, to hide in one of the wagons while his escort of soldiers had had to push and shove the angry crowd aside to allow the column through the main gate. He’d heard jeering and cursing, he’d heard swords being unsheathed, and the thumps and bangs of fists and booted feet against the wooden trap of his wagon.

‘It seems your friend has won them round for me.’

Becks nodded. ‘Yes. He has been very effective.’

He smiled and nodded at the people. ‘And they are staying put … even though they must have heard by now that Richard’s army approaches.’

Becks nodded as she rode in silence. She offered him a faint smile, the slightest curl of her lips.

John felt his heavy heart lift. For the first time in years he actually felt … liked. These people could have abandoned Nottingham to its fate. They could surely leave and find shelter elsewhere, in other towns, villages. But they’d decided to stay. Prepared to show the king that they actually approved of John’s stewardship while he’d been away on his foolish crusading, bankrupting them all.

He noticed the market stalls were well stocked. A good summer’s crop that had managed to be harvested without the disruption of roving gangs of bandits and villains, leaving smouldering fields and dead farm workers in their wake. The people certainly looked better fed than those in Oxford — not all pallid skin drawn up against hard- edged bones and dressed in rags, but people who looked well. People from better, happier times.

That at least was some comfort.

If Richard wanted to besiege this town, then he was going to have a hard time of it. The walls were good, the town’s position a strong one. There appeared to be good supplies of food within and a population that appeared willing to make a stand for him.

But the Grail?

Has he found it yet?

John’s heart skipped anxiously at the thought. There’d be no need for any kind of a stand, a battle, a siege, no need for any of that nonsense if that curious young man, Liam De Connor, had managed to successfully track down the bandits and get back what they’d taken.

He could hand it over to his brother and then beg his brother’s forgiveness for losing the Grail. Beg his forgiveness for failing to find that ransom money for two long years. He could beg, and publicly stoop to kiss his brother’s hand and, perhaps, that and the safe return of the Grail would be enough to appease him. There’d be a beating with a cane later, of course. Away from public eyes.

Royalty can never afford to be seen as frail … just as mortal as any common man.

Richard would delight at that: stripping him, beating him, having him beg and plead like a pitiful dog. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that to him. But Richard would have his precious Grail with all its precious Templar secrets and be in a good mood. He’d be distracted into thinking about future insane campaigns in faraway lands, now that he had his holy relic.

And John would get to keep a head on his shoulders.

He glanced up at the sturdy keep in front of them, at the centre of Nottingham. Hoping to catch sight of his new sheriff riding out to greet them on horseback. Hoping to see a sign, a smile and a small nod — a gesture from him to assure him that all was well, that he could relax once again.

That he has the Grail.

‘No welcome,’ uttered John. ‘Is no one at home?’

He could see the bobbing of helmeted heads between crenellations. The castle appeared to be garrisoned still. But a greeting party on horseback should have emerged by now, out of mere courtesy.

‘I wonder where the sheriff is?’