991. Chapter 991

After Much Ado About Murder

Episode 8.20

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Once more unto the breach for I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

He was interrupted by Will Fox. "The men have come back from the gates and the walls. Captain."

Castle rose and nodded to Kate. "If you will excuse me, Lady Katherine, duty calls."

She rose as well. "It has been a very long time since I slept in a real bed. I'm very tired. Good night, Captain Castle."

"Good night, Lady Katherine."

When Kate went upstairs, she found two veteran soldiers standing at the entrance to the hallway that led to her bedroom.

"Evening, Lady Katherine. Captain Castle put us here to see that you were not disturbed."

"'E should have put our bloody wives here, Owen." Said the other soldier. "Meg an' Marie would scare the Devil himself away."

Kate smiled and nodded. "Thank you, gentlemen."

Once in her nightdress and in bed, Kate reflected on the day. I began the day running from an evil man and end it asleep in my own bed. It appears that Captain Castle is a gentleman and will protect me. But what will happen when he has to leave? Am I to go back to the forest, or do I become a camp follower of his company. She decided she could worry about that later and went to sleep.

Castle first heard the reports from the men who'd looked at the walls.

"All in all, in very good shape. There's a dry moat, which could use some cleaning out, of some twelve English feet deep. The walls themselves is a good fifty feet high, are crenelated, except for some parts that have been damaged, and has a fine parapet for the defenders. There are half round towers to provide enfilading fire for the archers. They look solid enough, but we didn't go inside. And each of the gates has a fine tower a good sixty feet high."

Castle turned to the men he'd sent to check the gate houses. "What of the gates themselves?"

"The town militia will be mostly useless. Mostly young apprentices who appreciate time away from actually working. Their swords are so dull, they couldn't chop cabbage. The gate houses do have an inner and outer portcullis, but they haven't been used in ages. The gates they close at night are pitiful things, made of rotten wood. A good kick would knock them down."

Castle swore. "I'll check everything first thing tomorrow."

Kate woke at dawn, as had become her habit while hiding in the forest. She was dressed by the time Lanie came to wake her.

"Kate, you should have let me help you dress." She scolded.

Kate laughed. "You'd be amazed what I can do by myself. How long will it take to heat water for the bath? I still feel filthy."

"The water's already hot. Your archer captain has already had a bath."

"He's not my archer captain. "

"Well. The door came ajar just as I was passing by and I chanced to peek in. You wouldn't believe his muscles. His chest, shoulders and arms are huge. All that pulling back of a bow, I suppose. And he's rather large below that."

"Lanie!" Kate said, scandalized.

"I thought you should know who's in your house."

"It's not my house anymore." Kate said, sadly.

Kate walked down to breakfast, passing two different soldiers at the end of her hallway.

"Good day to ye, Lady." Said one.

Kate smiled at them.

She found herself sitting alone for breakfast until she was suddenly joined by a young man in the brown robes of a Franciscan monk. He was very pale and had blond hair. From his face, Kate guessed he was not out of his teens.

"Lady Katherine? I am Brother Liam, a novice. I assist Father Kevin in keeping the company's records. Captain Castle has left you that chest." He pointed to the end of the table where one of the chests that had been brought by the Senate sat.

"Um, it's a very nice chest." Kate said, somewhat mystified as to why Castle would give her a chest.

"He wants you to have the contents as well." Said Brother Liam.

Kate walked over and opened the chest. Her heart almost stopped. It was full to the top with gold coins. Her family was hardly poor, but she had never seen so much coin before, and all in gold.

"Why…why…." She stuttered.

"He said that it's rent for the use of your palazzo."

"But Duke Rodrigo gave him this palazzo to quarter his troops."

"Captain Castle has decided that as he took this town, and the town did not surrender on terms, that the town is his. Under Sir James and Duke Rodrigo, of course. He has returned the palazzo to you and has determined that the gold is a fair rent."

"I thought that the gold was owed to Duke Rodrigo in taxes?"

Liam smiled. "I am sure that the good Duke will get every farthing that he is owed, my lady. And Captain Castle has returned all of the other property in the town to the owners. Subject to the approval of Duke Rodrigo, of course."

Kate rose. "Where is Captain Castle? We need to speak."

Captain Castle was standing by the sea gate gatehouse, cursing. "Try the portcullis again."

"It's no bloody use, Captain. The bloody useless mechanism is bloody rusted shut. It won't go down." A voice from above shouted. The portcullis, a lattice made of thick iron bars, refused to drop and seal the gatehouse from the outside.

"Find more oil in town. And find any blacksmiths that reside here. I need all of the portcullises in all four gatehouses working."

"Captain, "Will Fox said, "we have stonemasons and their apprentices and workmen from the town. But they want to be paid before they do any work on the walls."

"Get some from the two chests, Will, and get them to work."

"Captain Castle?"

He turned at the sound of Kate's voice. "Yes, Lady Katherine?"

"The money you have given me is….excessive. And you returned our palazzo."

"I told you I was at Poitiers."

Kate nodded, unsure of why the conversation had taken this odd turn.

"I looked down to see how many arrows I had left. As I did, a crossbow bolt hit my helmet and knocked me back. The bolt glanced off my helmet and hit the man next to me in the throat. He died and I lived just because I looked down. That sort of thing happens a lot."

"I don't understand." Kate said, trying to understand the meaning of Castle's words.

"I could be dead tomorrow, but even if I lived to a hundred, what use would a palazzo in Italy be to me? And what good would gold be if I were dead. I spend the money I have to keep the members of my company and whom we serve with and who we protect, alive. I buy more arrows instead of fine clothing. I hire more archers instead of willing women. I make sure that each of my archers has a good horse, rather than buying many great horses for myself. I don't buy lands to retire to. I buy burial plots and pay for masses for my dead followers. I will never be a rich man, but I am content with the way I live. I need neither your house or that gold. Now you have a home and money to live on. That is as it should be."

Before Kate could reply, a patrol that Captain Castle had sent to the south came in and he needed to talk to them.

Captain Castle spent the rest of the day working on the never ending things that a leader needed to do. He checked the work that was going on at the walls. He was told by the stone masons hat the mortar might not be set by the time that Demming arrived, but that it would look good, and for a pirate without any siege train, that might be enough to restrain him.

The town had neither bowers nor fletchers to make bows or arrows, but the town blacksmiths could make both armor piercing bodkin points and broad headed points used for doing as much damage as possible to an unarmored man.

The lack of bowers was not a problem, as the company had many extra bows, but no captain of archers ever thought he had enough arrows. Castle tracked down the woodworkers in town and discovered they had lathes that could turn out the shaft of an arrow. A further search found stocks of feathers for fletching the arrows. A liberal disbursal of the gold that had been collected got the work started.

He was called back to the sea gate gatehouse and shown that both portcullises now functioned. He also checked the murder holes through which archers could shoot at any men trapped between the two lowered portcullises.

"Captain, "called an archer named Rhys, "there are furnaces up here with wood and great kettles. We can heat oil and douse the bastards."

Castle shook his head. "Oils are expensive, and there is little in the town. What we have, we use to oil the damned portcullises. But red hot sand will do just fine. Have some men gather sand and make sure the damned wood up there is dry and that we have tinder."

Castle then ordered out the town militia. Given what he'd seen entering the town, he expected to be disappointed. He had not expected to be as disappointed as he was.

"God in heaven, Will." He said to his second in command. "A town this size and wealth could raise a militia of a thousand well armed men. They have only two hundred?"

Will Fox nodded glumly. "According to the town rolls. And half of the militia you've called out are hiding under their beds at the thought of a fight. They'll be no use even if we dragged them out. Let them be."

"Let's see what we have." Castle muttered.

As he had been told, the militia seemingly consisted of young men who joined to be able to get away from work and pretend to be soldiers for a few hours a month.

He approached a tall, skinny young man who was holding a crossbow awkwardly. Castle tried to look the man in the eye, but found that the man's ill fitting helmet had fallen down over his eyes. Castle pushed it up.

"You're a crossbowman?"

The man, boy really, just looked at him.

"You're holding a crossbow. Are you a crossbowman?" Castle yelled.

"Si." The young man said softly.

"He's what passes for a soldier hereabouts, Captain." The speaker was an older man with a grey beard and bald head. He had an old, but serviceable, chain mail shirt, a helmet strapped to his belt and a crossbow across his back. "Pietro Cattaro, Captain, at your service. I was a soldier for twenty years as a lad and learned English. I served as a crossbowman on a Genoese galley. We fell in with a Turkish galley and took her. The ship was crammed with gold. Enough so that even a humble crossbowman could return to his home and buy a vineyard. But I kept my crossbow and armor and practiced."

"Do you have sons?" Castle asked.

"Three daughters, with useless husbands. But there are perhaps ten men in town who can and will fight. Not him, though." He pointed to the young crossbowman. "He's an awful shot."

"Even if he can't fight, he can carry extra arrows to my archers." Castle had an idea. "Catarro, take these militiamen and go out and gather up nice large stones. Ones that's crack a skull if thrown from the wall. We'll get some use out of our militia. And send those ten men to me."

The ten men were a mix of former soldiers, and sailors who had had to fight off pirates and Turks. They hadn't joined the militia because they thought it a joke. But they were willing to fight.

When Kate arrived home, she found her father, freshly bathed, shaved and barbered, and wearing clean clothing, sitting at the table and drinking wine.