Authors: J.E. Moncrieff
“I told you, I’m here for business. I heard of the tunnel and I couldn’t help myself. I had to have a look.”
“Then who told you of the tunnel?”
“A man named Smith in the market.”
“Smith, eh? Do you like being burnt, John?”
He remained silent, watching the soldier.
“Because unless you tell me who you were with, that iron is going up your backside with your skin still stuck to it. Gaoler?”
The masked bull of a man turned once more, the poker freshly warmed to an almost white heat. John slipped straight into panic.
“I was here alone, I was curious!” he screamed.
The gaoler stepped behind him and held the metal close to John’s buttocks so that he tensed in reaction and the hairs shrivelled away.
“Then who killed the guard?”
“Me!” he shouted.
“Why was your knife clean?”
“I threw the other one in the hole. Please?”
“Gaoler.”
The poker touched John’s buttocks as he swung, making him lurch in agony.
“Why were you here?” Rogers asked again.
“Curiosity.”
“Gaoler, run him through with that thing.”
“I’m here to steal!” John shouted in panic, making the torturer hesitate at the new information. “I came here to steal and I killed the guard to escape.”
“Lies,” Rogers said.
“It’s not lies! I swear to you.”
“Gaoler!” Rogers roared as the door flew open behind him.
“Stop,” ordered an authoritative voice John recognised. “Rogers, you are required in the barracks immediately,” said Sergeant Sykes.
“I am in the middle of something here, Sykes.”
“No, you are not. You have orders to attend the barracks. I’ll carry on with my prisoner, thank you.”
The tall and slim Rogers stood from his stool and looked at John closely.
“I’m not finished with you,” he said looking him up and down. “Stealing? Bollocks. You’re a traitor and you know it. You won’t get away with it. You’ll be hung, drawn and quartered within a month, I’ll see to it.”
“Rogers,” Sykes warned. “They’re waiting.”
Rogers fixed John with a menacing stare then turned his back on him, shooting Sykes with an angry look as he stormed past and out of the door. Sykes looked back at John who had now spun past and faced the other way. He could see the weeping, bloody wilts in his sides and the small, blistering abrasions on his buttocks and he sighed to himself. He noticed the torturer standing still holding a long, now pale-red poker; his grim look hidden but obvious behind his mask.
“What’s your name, Soldier?” he asked.
“Burgess, Sergeant,” answered the gaoler in a very young and almost feminine voice.
“You don’t work down here.”
“No, Sarge. Sergeant Rogers brought me down.”
“Did you volunteer for this?”
“Yes, Sarge.”
“Right, well what’s your usual duty?”
“Guard, Sergeant.”
“Guard. Ok, update me so far then.”
“The traitor won’t talk, Sarge. Started off with some bollocks about curiosity, then panicked and said he’s a thief. It’s rubbish though, Sarge. We know what he is.”
“Really? How?”
“Obvious ain’t it? Sneaks into the Tower through a tunnel? A noble? Traitor.”
“Why not a thief?”
“He made it up.”
“Oh right. What did he answer with first?”
“That curiosity shit.”
“And what’s the point of interrogating with pain?”
“Makes ‘em talk, don’t it? To stop the pain they tell the truth.”
“Correct. So he said curiosity, you burnt him. He said curiosity again, and then when you were going to spear his arse with that thing, he shit himself and coughed up that he’s a thief, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“So it worked didn’t it?”
“What did?”
“The torture worked!”
“I guess so. But he’s a traitor, isn’t he?”
“How do you know?” Sykes shouted, annoyed. “Look at him. He still says he’s a thief after all that.”
“But a noble…”
“Bloody King’s castle you idiot. There’s plenty to steal here regardless of who you are. Right, let’s get to the bottom of it. Go upstairs and get me two buckets of hot water and some thread.”
“Sarge?”
“You don’t know much about this do you? Get going.”
As he dropped his mask, the baby-faced young guard scurried out of the room. Sykes spun John around to face him.
“Jesus, what the hell are you doing, Rougemont?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Sykes,” John replied with barely more than a breath. “I’m not used to this shit. What’s the hot water and thread for? It’s not going to hurt as much as this is it?”
“No it won’t hurt. It’s to keep him busy.”
John looked at him questioningly.
“Don’t ask questions. Just stay very still.” He picked up a small blade from the table and held it below one of John’s wounds, catching the blood and pus on both sides. Putting it back on the table, he loosened the end of the rope at the wall and let John fall to the floor. Unbinding him, he put some cloth onto John’s wounds and put a clean robe on him.
“What’s happening?” John asked, quietly.
“You’re a thief. You’ll be imprisoned somewhere else until you escape or get rescued. You’ve got powerful friends, though, and won’t be moved for a few weeks so relax. There won’t be any more torture, but there may be some rats.”
“What’s up with that Rogers? I saw him bully a peasant when I came here last.”
“Brierly? Yeah, you’ll meet him,” Sykes smirked. “Let’s get you back up the stairs to the holding cells.”
In silence, Sykes led John up a tight set of stairs to another below-ground, torch-lit corridor where more cells were located. Opening an iron door, Sykes paused behind it and put his fingers to his lips to stop John saying anything.
“In you go,” he said, encouraging John inside then nodding at him as he shut the door with a clang. John sat down in the darkness and listened to the footsteps fade away.
Twenty
20
th
June 1483
Sergeant Sykes tucked his hands into his tunic to shield them from the biting air as he crossed a courtyard within the Tower. He sighed as he spotted the one man he wanted to avoid walking directly towards him with an evil smirk on his face.
“Sykes, just the man,” Rogers called, grinning cunningly. Sykes stopped for him but said nothing. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Robert. You gave up on Rougemont far too early.”
“He’d been tortured and he admitted theft and a defensive kill. What more do you want?”
“Command as a whole is not at all pleased.”
“Well then, I’ll have to justify my decision to them if they ask. I need not justify a thing to you. He’s imprisoned, Rogers. He’s never getting out.”
“Too right he’s not,” Rogers answered, chuckling. “He’ll stay inside that cell for the rest of his tiny, three day life.”
“Three days? What are you talking about?”
“You may have saved your boy from a punishment for treason, Sykes. But he’s still a thief and a murderer. He is to be hanged in three days on the hill outside.”
“You can’t do that. For thievery?”
“For theft in the Tower and murder, Robert. I didn’t do it, I merely recommended it.”
“To whom?”
“The Duke of Gloucester, of course.” He fixed Sykes with a smug glare. “I don’t know what your game is. Either you’re fucking your bound prisoners in the darkness every day, which is probably why you didn’t want me to burn his arsehole; or you’re a traitor yourself and you’re on his side. Either way, Robert, I will sniff you out.”
Sykes leaned in close.
“Call me a queer or a traitor again and I’ll bite your gullet from your neck and chew it while you choke to death. I do not fear repercussions over your death, Roger. It would be worth my own death to see your throat extracted.”
“Watch your threats, Sykes. I’m not the only one looking at you.”
“I’m not scared of you, Rogers, and it’s no joke. Stay away from me, or I’ll kill you.” Knocking past his adversary, Sykes stormed off in a mock rage as the panic spread through him. Who was watching him? And how could he save John De Rougemont?”
“What do you see, Jake?” Courtridge whispered from under his hood. Jake stood with his back to a wall outside the Tower, watching the movement around the rear barracks. As he slowly lifted his hood, he watched the details of the soldiers crossing the walls, taking positions and moving around the entry gates by the river. The day after John’s capture, Jake had met Courtridge and been assigned to him for reconnoitre duties at the tower. Courtridge had spent the first year of his preparations cultivating his team and his plan, then the following months developing his inside contacts before turning to final preparations and entry plans.
“Seems pretty structured up there,” Jake replied as he watched the walls. “Are you sure we have enough contacts to do this silently?”
“Of course we do, my young friend. I can pass us through the front gate and clear the outer perimeter. Thanks to you and your brother we can take the inner wall. Then it’s just a matter of taking the white tower as stealthily as possible. It’s old, Jake, it’s Norman age. But it’ll fall. With the heavy fortress on the outside, the guard on the king is less so. Why all the questions?”
“I am just careful to ensure my brother won’t be left behind is all. He sits there now in the darkness. Maybe chained, maybe gagged. Is he being tortured? Is he alive? What state is he in?”
“I said we will find him. Why are you pushing this?”
“Because if this goes wrong and we have to escape, I know you will not risk sacrificing yourself for my brother. To take the cells and free him is another challenge altogether and is one I don’t feel you are considering.”
“Don’t push it, young man,” Courtridge said a little more firmly. “I can arrange his rescue prior to our visit, it will be done.”
“And if we are compromised and must escape?”
Courtridge paused and looked at Jake from his hood.
“Success of our objective is my priority.”