Chapter Sixteen
STEPHEN AND OLIVIA smelled smoke and the scent of fresh blood; screams pierced their ears. It was as if a scene were playing out in front of them, and yet, strangely, they not only saw but also felt what the people before them felt.
* * *
SIR JOHN AND Lady Alys stood on a set of winding stairs. He was protectively below her, wielding his sword with ferocity against a small band of soldiers who were trying to push past him up the stairs. Behind him, Alys drew her dagger from its scabbard on her belt. Jewels winked in the hilt, but the blade was not decorative. She gripped it firmly, facing out, ready to jab at any man who tried to come at them from the side, where the steps were close to the ground.
Fear surged in her, along with the heated excitement of battle. She knew they had little chance. The enemy had gotten inside the bailey before they even knew they were besieged. Only treachery from inside could have managed it. This was the advance guard. Soon the rest of the men would have dispatched Sir Raymond’s remaining soldiers and, unless distracted by the prospect of looting, would join the men here, and then they would swarm up the steps.
The only safety lay in the tower room upstairs. It was the last bulwark of defense, high above the rest of the great hall, reached only by a set of narrow, twisting stairs. At the top of the stairs, a heavy wooden door opened into the round tower room, and it could be shut and barred with a heavy plank.
One could hold out for some time in the tower room, protected by the stone walls and thick wood, but eventually the door would be breached and death would come pouring in or, if not, one would die a slower death of thirst and hunger. It was possible, of course, that one could provision the room and thereby last longer, if the door held, but there were no provisions there now. There had been no warning, no time to prepare. Alys had barely managed to make it to these stairs leading to the room, carrying a hastily packed sack of her goods; she had reached it only because John had come running to meet her as she emerged from her room and had dragged her with him to the stairs, laying out around him with his sword.
“Go on!” he growled at her now. “Get up to the room.”
“I cannot leave you!” How could she run to safety, knowing that he stayed here below to perish under the enemy’s swords? “You must come with me.”
A soldier tried to come from the side of the stairs. There was no rail to the side low on the stairs here. It made it easier to defend, but it was also possible to put one’s hands on the stairs and try to swing up, which was what one of the enemy tried to do now. Alys jumped forward, bent down and stabbed her dagger into his hand. He fell back with a yowl of pain.
“My lady! Help!”
Alys looked out across the great hall. A woman was pelting toward the stairs, some distance in front of a pursuing soldier. She was dressed far better than a servant, and she was comely, as well, her hair a fall of raven-black. It was her husband’s mistress, Elwena, and she held a boy’s hand in hers as they ran with the speed of the terrified across the hallway.
“Help me, my lady! Please!”
Without thinking, Alys went down on her knees at the edge of the stairs, as low as she could get without impeding Sir John. Elwena reached the side of the stairs and lifted the child up. Alys caught him under the arms and swung him up onto the stairs, setting him back against the wall. Then she turned.
Elwena grabbed the stairs and tried to scramble up onto them, perilously close to John’s swinging sword. Alys reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling with all her might. The enemy soldier reached Elwena and grasped her by the belt, jerking her backward.
Behind them the little boy screeched with fear, “No! Mama! Mama!”
Elwena turned, a dagger in her hand, and struck swift as a snake, sinking the dagger into the break between the sleeve and tunic of the man’s chain mail. The tip sank into flesh to the bone, snapping off, and the soldier fell back with a roar of pain and rage. She turned and jumped at the stairs again, straining to lift herself up, her face contorted with fear. Alys lay flat on the stairs, almost beneath John’s feet, and grasped the woman’s belt as the soldier had done, straining to pull her up.
On the floor, several feet away, the wounded soldier staggered to his feet, clutching his wounded shoulder. He bent and picked up the sword he had dropped, and with a cry of fury he flung it at Elwena, as she dangled above the ground. The sword caught her in the side, cutting into her, then clattered down to the floor. She shrieked with pain and would have fallen but for Alys’s grasp of her. Alys struggled to keep hold of her, letting out a groan of dismay as Elwena began to slide back.
With a bitter oath, Sir John struck with all his strength, slicing into the neck of the soldier in front of him. Blood spurted as John pulled back his sword and with his foot shoved hard against the dying man, who staggered backward, crashing into the men behind him, and they fell, stumbling on the stairs. The soldier on the outer edge slipped on the blood, and John encouraged him over the side with a swift kick to the jaw. In the instant of peace this afforded him, he put his sword in his left hand and reached down to hook his hand in Elwena’s girdle and yank the woman up onto the steps. He turned just in time to dodge a blow from an enemy sword that clanged uselessly onto the stone. Switching his sword back into his right hand, he started to fight again with renewed fury.
“Mama! Mama!” The boy was still crying, and he flung himself on the woman, sobbing.
“’Tis all right, precious. Hush.” Elwena leaned back against the wall, her face gray.
“We must get you up the stairs,” Alys said, bending and putting her arm around the woman. “We are right beneath his feet. He needs more room to fight.”
Elwena nodded and pushed herself up with her hand as Alys lifted. They managed to stagger up a few steps before Elwena fell back to the ground. Having given John some breathing room, Alys knelt now beside the woman and examined her side. She was bleeding profusely. Alys dug into the sack she had dropped on the stairs as she had gone to help Elwena. She pulled out a linen shift and pressed it hard against Elwena’s side.
“’Tis the best I can do for now,” she told the other woman. “Mayhap ’twill stanch the blood.”
Elwena nodded, not wasting breath on words. She leaned against the wall, one arm around her young son. Alys looked at him with pity. He appeared to be no more than four or five years old. Even if he survived this day, in all likelihood he would be an orphan, for if Elwena’s present wound did not kill her, the soldiers would when they breached the tower room.
Alys glanced back at Sir John. He was still holding off the soldiers, though he was slowly retreating upward. She murmured a prayer for him under her breath, then turned back to Sir Raymond’s mistress. “We must go up the stairs.”
Elwena nodded. “Help me up.”
Again she managed to stand with Alys’s help. Alys sheathed her dagger and picked up her sack, curling her other arm around Elwena’s waist. Slowly they went up the steps, Elwena leaning against Alys, and the boy following behind them, keeping a death grip on his mother’s skirts. Every few steps they paused, and Elwena sagged against the stone wall for a moment. Then they started again.
The stairs seemed endless, and the sounds of battle were still a din in their ears. The stairs curved, and soon they could no longer see down to the bottom, where Sir John fought on. Alys’s heart ached at leaving him, yet she had to help the wounded woman to the room above them.
They reached the door at last and stumbled inside. The room was lit only by a cross-shaped window open to the outside air. It was little used and contained few creature comforts—dried rushes spread across the floor, a simple pallet for a bed, a small stool beside it, and on the stool, a cheap candle in the form of a bowl of animal lard with a thick wick stuck in.
Alys helped Elwena over to the crude pallet and eased her onto it. She set down her sack and knelt beside the woman. Gently she pulled away the shift she had pressed against the other woman’s waist. The blood was, she saw, still flowing freely. The wound needed to be cleaned, she knew, but she had no water with her, and so she left the wound as it was, pressing the makeshift bandage back into place. Taking out a nightshift, she used her dagger to tear off a long strip from around the bottom, and this she used to wrap around Elwena’s waist, tightly binding the bandage to her.
Elwena lay half-propped up against the wall, panting from her exertions. “You helped me,” she said after a moment, her voice wondering.
“Yes, of course. You were in trouble.”
“You are his wife. And I—”
“I know.” Alys shrugged. “That does not change the fact that you were in trouble. I could scarcely stand by and watch them rape and kill you.”
“There are some as would,” Elwena told her.
“Perhaps. I am not one of them.”
Elwena looked at her oddly. “I was not kind to you. I strutted in front of you with my finery.”
“I know.” Alys paused, then added honestly, “I hold no grudge against you, Elwena. I am not jealous. I was only glad that the nights Sir Raymond went to you, I did not have to endure his lust. I pitied you that you had to.”
Elwena lifted her chin proudly. “I don’t need pity. I was able to take anything he did, and I made a good life for me and for Guy.”
“I am sure you did the best you could for the boy,” Alys agreed candidly.
She got up and went to the door, sliding the bar up and opening the door to look out. The sounds of battle were growing closer. That could only mean that Sir John was still alive, and she offered up a small prayer of gratitude. After replacing the bar, she came back and squatted down beside Elwena. The woman’s son was sitting quietly by his mother’s head, one hand on her hair, patting it. His other thumb, she noticed, was firmly planted in his mouth, and his eyes had a haunted look. He knew, she thought. With a child’s instinct, he saw that his mother was in grave danger.
Alys glanced at the bandage tied around Elwena’s waist. The blood had soaked clear through it and was spreading out to stain the whole side of her dress, as well. She was mortally wounded, Alys knew; the only question was how long she would be able to hold out before she died.
Elwena opened her eyes and looked at her, and Alys started a little guiltily, as though Elwena would be able to guess what Alys had been thinking.
“Do you love him?” she asked, surprising Alys.
“Who?” Alys said, though she was certain Elwena did not refer to Sir Raymond.
“Sir John. The captain. There’s them as say you do.”
“Who says it?”
“He said it once, when he was drinking.”
“Sir Raymond?” Alys asked, stunned by the other woman’s statement. “But he never—”
“He would not admit it to anyone. It would damage his pride too much. I am sure he didn’t mean to tell me, probably doesn’t even remember it. He will find some way to make you suffer without anyone knowing why.”
“I fear he will be too late,” Alys remarked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps he was not.”
Alys looked at Elwena sharply. “What do you mean?”
“The castle has been overrun. We will all die. And by chance it happens when Sir Raymond is not here.”
“No!” Alys said automatically. “It is his own! His home. And all the rest of the people...he could not...” Her voice trailed off as she considered. “To kill all these people—the soldiers, the servants—just to get his revenge on me? Even he could not be that evil.”
“They say he dances with the devil in the woods.”
Alys’s hand curled instinctively about the cross she wore on a chain around her throat. “You think he would kill even you?”
“You think he cares for me?” Elwena’s smile was bitter. “Because I give him pleasure? He gives me things, yet he counts me no more than he would the loaf of bread he eats or the shoe he puts on his foot.”
“Wait.” Alys raised her hand to silence her and cocked her head, listening. “’Tis closer—the fighting.” She stood up and hurried to the door, leaning her head against it. Again she lifted off the bar and eased the door open.
They were so near that she could see them now, only a few feet below her. Blood streamed down the side of John’s face, and his arm moved more slowly. He stumbled a little as his foot sought the stair above him, and Alys gasped, fearing he would fall. But he righted himself and moved on.
He was tiring. Soon he would stumble and fall, and then the swords would come flashing down.
“John!” she called.
“Alys! What are you doing? Get back in the room. Bar the door!”
“Not without you!”
“Are you mad?”
“I will not leave you. I told you that.”
Sword rang against sword. John cursed. He could feel the air from the open door behind him. He eased back, making his strokes weaker, and the lead soldier pressed on eagerly. John continued to mount the steps, moving more quickly now. His opponent followed, outstripping the soldiers behind him. John did not need to glance back; his feet were on the landing. He jumped back, landing inside the room. Alys swung the door shut, but John’s opponent jumped, too, crashing into the door and sending Alys stumbling back.
He pushed his way inside, and Alys slammed the door behind him, pulling down the bar. John came forward, swinging his sword, all pretense of weakness gone. Two quick, hard blows sent the man stumbling back, and John lashed out with his foot, catching him behind his heels, and swept upward, sending him crashing to the floor. John rammed his sword home in the man’s throat.
He pulled the sword out and turned to face Alys. Blood and sweat mingled, streaming down his face. “God’s blood, woman! I told you to close yourself in here! Do you know what you risked?”
“Only what you risked for me,” Alys replied.
He dropped his sword and swept her into his arms, holding her close.
Outside, the soldiers crashed uselessly against the door. John glanced toward it, and his mouth twisted in contempt. “They’ll try the battering ram next, but they’ll find the staircase is built too close. ’Twill take axes.”
He dropped down onto the floor and leaned against the wall, casting a glance toward Elwena. “Why did you save her?”
“I could not let them kill her.”
John looked at her and smiled. “No. I suppose you could not. She would never have done the same for you.”
There were noises outside of men coming and going, and then the sounds of someone hacking at the door.
“Battle-axes,” John judged. “I’ll have time to rest.”
But then there more rustlings at the door, and men shouting at one another. And then, faintly, they smelled smoke. Alys turned to John, alarmed.
“What is that? What are they doing?”
“They must have lit a fire against the door—piled kindling and got it started. They hope it will burn through the door, make their job easier—or smoke us out.”
“It will be much quicker, then, than I had thought.” Alys glanced around. “The flames will set these rushes on fire.”
He nodded and began pushing the dry rushes away from the door and toward the center of the room.
“Wait.” Elwena motioned to them to come nearer.
“What is it?” Alys went over to kneel beside her.
“I can get you out of here,” Elwena said.
“What?” She must be delirious, Alys thought, from loss of blood.
“No. ’Tis the truth. I know a way out. But you must promise me—promise me you will take my boy. Care for him. Promise you will raise him as your own.”
“Of course I would care for him.” Alys looked over at the big-eyed child sitting beside his mother. “But we cannot leave. There are soldiers—”
“There is a secret door.”
Alys stared at her. John came over and squatted down beside them.
“What are you saying? There is a passage out of here?”
“Yes. A secret staircase that goes down inside the wall. The stone is not solid. There are two sets of stone, and a narrow passageway in between. I have gone up and down it, meeting Sir Raymond in here. He loves secrets. He had it built long ago, before you even came here.”
Hope flared in Alys. “Truly? Then we will go. But you will come, too.”
“No.” Elwena met Alys’s eyes squarely. “I would only slow you down.”
“We cannot leave you to them.”
“You must,” she retorted firmly. She turned her face up to John’s, saying, “You know what I say is true. You must leave me here. I will not live. You know that. And you could not move quickly with me. We would be caught before we left the bailey.”
John nodded and looked at Alys. They both knew that Elwena spoke the truth.
Elwena went on. “We will change clothes, my lady. And—and leave something of yours. They do not know you. They will think I am you, and then they will not search. They will say that the lady of the castle died. And then he will believe it.”
Elwena looked significantly at Alys, and Alys understood her meaning. If Sir Raymond thought she was dead, he would not look for her, and she and John would not have to spend their lives in dread, waiting for him to find them. She and John had been willing to run because it was their only chance at happiness; they could not stand to remain here, unable to love each other freely. But they had known the risks; Sir Raymond would have hunted for them, and even given the few days’ head start they would have had, it was likely that he would have tracked them down and killed them. Even if they had gotten away, they would have had to live all their lives looking over their shoulders, afraid he would find them.
Elwena was offering them freedom. Tears filled Alys’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“I ask only that you take my boy with you. Take Guy and raise him.”
“I will.” The tears spilled over onto Alys’s cheeks, and she knelt beside the woman and took her hand in hers. “I promise you. We will raise Guy as our own.”
Elwena offered her a small smile. “Thank you, my lady.”
As it turned out, it seemed too much trouble for the dying woman to exchange her clothes with Lady Alys. Alys simply removed her outer tunic and pulled it on over Elwena’s bloody clothes, fastening one of Alys’s girdles around her hips. Then she pulled her other simple tunic from the sack and slipped it over her head, fastening it with the ordinary leather girdle she wore. She took off her veil, too, and refastened it so that it neatly hid all her hair.
She decided to leave the golden box here, too, with much of the house’s treasure inside it. She took out her best jeweled girdle and put it in her sack, along with a handful of bracelets and rings, and the small leather purse containing a few gold and silver coins. They would need something for their future, a little bit of money to get away and to start their new life, perhaps purchase a small holding of land somewhere far from here. She would leave the large, showy gold cross Sir Raymond had given her as a bride gift, and the other necklaces and bracelets and rings. That should be enough treasure to convince the marauding soldiers they had found the body of the lady of the castle.
Alys took the small gold cross on a chain from around her own neck and hung it around Elwena’s. She removed her wedding band and placed it on Elwena’s finger, along with two other of her rings. Then she handed the woman the cunningly carved rosary. It cost her a pang to give it up, for it was beautiful, and she had brought it with her from her father’s house, so it in no way had anything to do with her husband. She had prayed upon it many a time, her fingers rubbing over the engraved beads until it was a wonder there were any pictures left. But it was her prized possession, and nothing would convince Sir Raymond that her body had been found as the presence of the rosary with it would. Besides, she knew, Elwena would have far more need of it as she lay dying than Alys would, running away.
She put it in Elwena’s hand, and Elwena’s fingers closed around it, instinctively rubbing the sacred gold beads. Alys reached inside her loose shift and untied the leather thong she wore there around her waist and pulled it out of her clothing. From the thong dangled a small, engraved gold ring, a token given her months ago by Sir John, which she had worn daily against her skin, a secret reminder of him and of their love. Smiling a little, she caressed the trinket, then slipped it on her finger in place of her wedding band.
Elwena pulled out a small leather pouch and handed it to Alys. “Take this. It is for the boy. Everything I have saved for him.”
Alys nodded. It was heavy for its size, and it clinked with the sound of coins. She put it in the sack along with the rest of her possessions.
“Put the casket on the far wall, my lady, far from me.”
Alys was puzzled, but she did as the woman asked. As she had worked, John had stripped the outer tunic from the soldier he had killed. Though stained with the man’s blood, it carried the emblem of Surton’s men and would allow them to pass whoever they might meet outside with much less problem.
“Put your tunic on him,” Elwena said. Her voice was growing weaker. “And change your sword with his.”
“He’s one of their own,” Sir John pointed out, though he did as she bade, struggling to get the tunic on the dead body and buckling his own sword belt around him. “They will know him.”
“I will take care of his face,” Elwena replied grittily.
“There won’t be enough bodies here. They’re bound to wonder what happened to the other two,” Alys said.
Elwena shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Many will tell them I’m a witch, for there are a number who believe it.” She flashed a smile reminiscent of her old cocky grin. “I didn’t discourage it. They will probably think I flew from the window. It doesn’t matter what they think or make up to explain it, as long as they trumpet it around that the two of you are dead. And they will. It will be a matter of pride for them to have defeated Sir John and to have killed Sir Raymond’s wife.”
“She’s right. They will want to believe that you and I are dead, and that makes it easy to dismiss whatever doubts they have. Come, my love, we must go. The fire is growing,” he said.
He was right. The air was becoming thicker with smoke, its acrid scent tickling her throat, and one could feel the heat near the door. John laid his sword beside his enemy and picked up the other man’s weapon. Alys picked up her sack.
Elwena hugged her son to her for a long moment, then spoke quietly and firmly to him. He nodded solemnly, tears streaming down his face, and Elwena hugged him again and kissed him. Alys came over and took his hand, and he stepped away from his mother.
Alys bent down to the other woman and handed Elwena her own dagger. She could not leave the woman without some protection, and Elwena’s dagger had snapped off in the arm of the soldier. Elwena’s fingers gripped the hilt, and she offered Alys a small smile.
“Take the candle,” Elwena said, nodding toward the stool. “’Tis dark in there.”
Lighting the candle was a difficulty, for there was no lit candle or burning fire in the room. But John sheathed his sword and picked up one of the longer rushes and carefully slid it between the wooden door and its frame, low to the ground, so that it reached the outer side of the door and caught the flame burning there. Then he pulled it back with even greater care and dipped it into the bowl, lighting the crude candle. He turned to Elwena.
“We are ready.”
“See that stone?” Elwena pointed to the wall across the room from her. “The fifth one up from the floor? It is smaller than the others. Pull it out.”
John did as she said, edging his fingers into the cracks around the rock and wiggling it out. To his surprise, it came easily, and inside the hole was a lever. He reached in and turned it, and there was a click.
“Now push the wall to your left—low—and it will go out. Just put the rock back in its place and when you get on the stairs, shove the door closed. No one will know the door’s there.”
He reached down and pushed, and, amazingly, the heavy stone slid back and to the side, leaving them a small opening. He replaced the small rock in its hole, covering the lever. Then he crawled through the opening, finding a set of stairs curving downward, so narrow that his shoulders brushed both sides.
Alys turned and said, “Goodbye, Elwena.”
Elwena nodded. “God speed, my lady.”
Alys guided the boy through the door, then crawled in after him. They slid the door closed and started down the stairs. The light of the candle was little enough in the gloom of the staircase, and they moved carefully down the steps. The stairs seemed to go on forever, an endless, curving path of uneven stone.
But at last they reached the bottom and stood before the blank stone wall. There was a lever set into this wall, also, and, taking a breath, John lifted it. With a click, the door unlatched, and John inserted his fingers into the crack between the stones and pulled back. The door slid open easily.
Cautiously, John eased his head out, then the rest of his body. He motioned for Alys and the boy to follow. She did so, clutching Guy’s hand tightly.
It was still day. It amazed her. It seemed as if so much time had passed that it should have been night. But it was only late afternoon, the sun casting long shadows across the bailey. The scene was chaotic. There were fires dotting the courtyard—sheds burning and stacks of hay, whether set by carelessness or pitch-flame arrows or for sheer perversity, she was not sure. The storage shed had been broken open and the tuns of wine rolled out. Soldiers, obviously having partaken of the contents, staggered around, shouting and laughing boisterously as they carried out other goods from the shed. There were no longer screams around the castle. The battle, it seemed, was over, except above them in the tower.
There were people about, but they paid no attention to them. John wrapped his hand around Alys’s arm and strode off purposefully, dragging Alys with him as if she were a captive. The boy, his hand firmly in Alys’s skirts, trotted with them. They looked neither to left nor right, and Alys kept her head down.
They did not pause until they reached the shelter of one of the sheds that lay in front of the castle wall. Protected by the shed on one side and the wall on the other, they stopped and looked around. No one, it seemed, had noticed their progress or, if they had, they had paid no attention to it. With John wearing Surton’s mark, it seemed that no one questioned them.
“We shall slip along the wall here and out the rear gate,” he whispered to her. “If anyone should stop us, I’ll silence him quick enough. All right?”
Alys nodded. She looked up at the tower. There was smoke billowing out of the small window. It seemed far too much for the burning door to be creating. And in that instant she knew what Elwena had done. She had said she would take care of the soldier’s face, and now Alys realized that she had meant to burn it. She must have pushed the rushes against the door and set them on fire, and soon the rushes, the pallet, the enemy soldier, all of the room, would have been on fire, everything burning but the stone.
Alys had not thought of it at the time, but now she saw that Elwena’s black hair would have given her away as the woman who had run across the great hall, not the lady of the castle who had fought her way up the stairs. She had doubtless decided to set the room ablaze in order to conceal her identity and that of the soldier. Alys shivered at the thought and hoped that the smoke had overcome her, or that Elwena had plunged her own dagger into her heart before the fire took her.
John nudged Alys, and she nodded. He took off along the wall, moving swiftly through the lengthening shadows. No one stopped them or even seemed to notice them. They reached the door in the wall, standing wide open. No one guarded it, and they slipped through it and out into the field beyond. They ran then, John picking up the boy and carrying him.
They ran across the field and into the woods beyond, escaping to a new life.