Текст книги "The Stone Rose"

Автор книги: Carol Townend

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

***

Katarin’s whimpering disturbed Gwenn. ‘What is it, little one?’ She yawned, turning in bed so she could embrace her sister.

‘Thunder,’ Katarin muttered, burying her head in Gwenn’s shoulder. ‘Katarin doesn’t like thunder.’

Gwenn listened. ‘But that’s not thunder, Katarin. That sounds like someone trying to get in.’ She pushed her sister’s clinging hands to one side and strained her ears. ‘No, it most certainly is not thunder. Someone’s forcing the–’ Gwenn broke off. This was no casual visitor seeking shelter.

Wondering what had happened to the guard and why the alarm bell was not ringing, Gwenn swung out of bed and groped for an unlit candle stub. ‘Stay there, Katarin. Watch Philippe. Papa! Papa!’ she called, running to the solar hearth and shoving the wick of the candle into the faintly glowing embers. The candle sputtered reluctantly into life and, belatedly, the tocsin began to peal.

Jean emerged from his bedchamber half clothed and buckling on his sword. ‘Get dressed,’ he said. Snatching up his shield, he dived for the twisting stairs. ‘Keep Katarin and Philippe up here. If necessary, don’t hesitate to bar this door.’

‘Aye, Papa.’ Barring the door would be a last, hopeless measure, for it would mean that all her father’s men were... Fear tied a knot in Gwenn’s belly, and her mind shied away from the gruesome images her imagination conjured up. Her father could not have meant that. Gwenn wondered what he had meant, and how she was to judge when locking the door was necessary. A thousand other questions milled round in her sleep-dazed mind, but they too must go unanswered.

Holding her candle high, Gwenn’s gaze swept the solar. The glazed eyes of half a dozen women blinked up at her. There was no sign of panic yet, only confusion. The thundering assault on the hall door had settled into a rhythm so regular it was almost soothing.

‘You heard my father,’ Gwenn said, pleased her voice was steady. She did not want to set them screeching. ‘We must get dressed. Mary, light the candles, if you please. And Johanna, I’d be grateful if you could come and see to Philippe.’ Candle aloft, she led Johanna back to her niche, trying to remember if there were any weapons up here. They all had their eating knives, naturally, and there was a dagger at the bottom of Izabel’s ancient chest.

A tearing crack, which could be nothing else but a solid oak door being hewed apart, made her miss a step. A roar from below, and she felt herself grow pale. She heard the clash of steel on steel. A man howled like a wolf and fell silent, and the silence was worse than the howl. Hot wax spilled on her hand, burned her. She gasped.

‘Mistress?’ Johanna’s dark eyes were watchful.

The wet nurse was commendably cool. Gwenn found this surprising, but had no time to ponder on the vagaries of Johanna’s character. Directing her mind to the seemingly impossible task of keeping her candle steady, Gwenn went to rouse her sister. ‘Come on, Katarin,’ she said brightly. It was a miracle her tongue worked at all, for her throat was dry as dust. ‘We’re rising early today.’

Katarin had her thumb in her mouth. She removed it long enough to ask, ‘Why?’

Gwenn wrenched her lips into a smile. ‘We are going to pray.’ The thumb came out again and Gwenn’s heart lurched. Please God, she prayed, don’t let Katarin start asking questions, not now.

‘What’s all that crashing, Gwenn?’

‘The men are practising,’ Gwenn answered briskly. It was a feeble answer, for Katarin was no idiot child and she knew well enough that the men never practised in the small hours. But it was the only explanation her beleaguered mind tossed up, and if Gwenn answered her firmly enough, perhaps Katarin might believe her. ‘Come along, Katarin. Prayers.’

The thumb went in, and obediently Katarin climbed from the bed. Blood-curdling noises were being channelled up the stairwell. Gwenn shut her ears and found her sister’s clothes. The child was old enough to dress unaided, so, having handed her sister her dress, she rooted in the coffer for the dagger. Digging it out, she looked disparagingly at it. It wasn’t much of a dagger. The blade was dull, the whalebone haft yellow and cracked with age. It couldn’t have seen a whetstone in years. She ran a finger down one edge, and grimaced, it was blunt. However, it looked stronger than her eating knife...

She shook her head. What use was one dagger when it appeared they’d been invaded by an army?

The solar brightened. Mary was holding a couple of reed dips to the cressets. Klara whimpered. Bella the dairymaid began to sob. Gwenn clenched her teeth. Like frightened sheep, the other women clustered round Bella, making sympathetic noises. Gwenn stalked to the centre of the chamber. ‘Think of the child, Bella,’ she said, sternly.

‘But, mistress–’

‘Will someone lead us in prayer?’ Gwenn asked. She noticed that Mary wore a calmer face than the rest of them. ‘Mary?’

‘Aye, mistress. As you will.’

As Gwenn waved the women into place round the Virgin, the flaring cresset light fell on a mason’s hammer and chisel that had been kicked into a cobwebby corner. A week ago her father had set a mason to work on a new privy, and the man must have left his tools out, handy for finishing his work.

‘Hail Mary,’ Mary began to intone.

Gwenn shivered, and was for an instant whirled back to Lady Day two years earlier. She was in St Peter’s Cathedral, listening to the Black Monk preaching. She could see two mercenaries leaning against the cathedral porch. She was fleeing them, running, running...

‘...Full of grace. Blessed art thou amongst women...’

Gwenn took a grip on herself. It was Mary taking the prayers, not Father Jerome. And the two mercenaries were no longer callous strangers, but Ned Fletcher, her friend, and Alan le Bret, who, while he was no friend, had saved her life. Dragging her mind to the present, she marched to the corner where the mason’s tools lay. They might make weapons.

‘...Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus...’ Mary dropped to her knees and the other women followed her lead.

The hammer was old, its handle worn, but it was solid. The chisel needed sharpening, but – Gwenn’s mouth twisted – it was no blunter than her dagger. She’d hate to have to use them, but if she must... She flexed her shoulders. They had three possible weapons between them. Three weapons, seven women, and two children. She shot a furtive glance at the door. Exactly what were they up against? Women and children would be safe, wouldn’t they?

A chilling screech rang in their ears. Klara moaned. ‘Enough of that,’ Gwenn said, tightly. Klara ignored her, rocking to and fro as she knelt. Her moaning rose, became a wail.

Mary chanted more loudly. ‘Save us now and at the hour of our death.’

Katarin had emerged from their sleeping alcove and looked at them with a child’s wide-eyed curiosity. Gwenn dredged up a smile and held out her hand. ‘Good girl, you’re dressed. Come here, sweetheart.’ Wrapping her sister’s cold hand securely in hers, she knelt to pray.

Chapter Eighteen

Waldin St Clair, champion-at-arms, was in his element. Glad to be in harness again after his recent life of ease, his sword whirled before him, clearing a route directly to the centre of the maelstrom in the hall. Surrounded by his brother’s enemies and cutting them down as though they were no more than stalks of corn and his sword was a reaper’s scythe, he was outnumbered, but undaunted. He bared his teeth in a fierce grin and welcomed the frantic pounding of his heart. The blood rushed invigoratingly through his veins. He felt alive as he hadn’t for weeks.

The clamour was deafening. It was like the mêlée in a tournament, with one notable difference. In the mêlée, Waldin’s inbuilt sense of chivalry made him temper the blows he had delivered. Chivalry did not shackle his hands today. There was no need for him to take care to avoid giving a death-dealing blow or a crippling strike. These lousy assassins had crept up on Kermaria like thieves in the night, they deserved as bad a death as he could give them. They were allied with a lord whose quarrel with Jean ranked them lower than the meanest outlaw. In Waldin’s eyes, they had signed their own death warrants.

François de Roncier was fighting by the great fire, and though well mailed and helmeted so his shock of copper hair was concealed, his round, ruddy visage was plain for anyone to see. He had stepped outside the law in loosing his cutthroats on Kermaria. Barely a month ago, Waldin’s brother had taken his claim to the de Wirce lands to court. The judgement had not been given, and it might well be made in the Count’s favour, for his family had held the land for years and possession was nine tenths of the law. If the court found in favour of de Roncier, this slaughter would be for nothing.

And it was slaughter. One keen, professional glance told Waldin that the couple of dozen men who guarded his brother’s manor were outnumbered four to one. Though Waldin’s own dexterity and the tactics he had passed on to Jean’s guard tipped the scales a little in Kermaria’s favour, his brother’s men would probably meet their maker before the sun rose. Against so large a force, they did not have a chance. Waldin was not afraid to die – not this way. For this would be a glorious death. He would go with his sword in his hand. He would go cleanly, fighting a just cause.

The last winter had brought him the odd twinge of rheumatism, his first. It had been a depressing warning of what was in store. Reluctantly, Waldin had resigned himself to a slow diminishing of that vitality by which he had lived. If his fate was to grow old slowly and painfully, growing less mobile and more feeble with each passing season, then so be it. He had managed to convince himself that he was resigned to his fate. But now, with his blood running hot and fierce, he acknowledged he had been deluding himself. He had not wanted to die a slow, lingering death with his faculties diminishing year by year. And all at once he was presented with the opportunity to go the way he would have chosen – the warrior’s way. And for his brother’s sake, Waldin vowed to give a good account of himself before his soul was hewn from his body.

Waldin saw Jean’s squire, young Roger de Herion, go down squealing, a spear through his belly, and winced. He repaid the man who’d skewered Roger with a clean thrust. ‘More than you deserve,’ he muttered, pulling his sword clear. There was no time to wipe his sword clean on his victim’s leather breeches before another of the Count’s men stood before him. Buoyed up, exhilarated, Waldin parried thrust after thrust. Another de Roncier heathen threw down the gage. Waldin ran him through with cold efficiency, but instantly another sprang up to take his place. The odds were stacked against them, and knowing that his end must come soon, Waldin’s mind worked feverishly, as though it could squeeze several years’ thinking into one minute. Jean, Waldin recalled, scorned his own love of glory. Jean would not appreciate the honour in dying outnumbered. Jean would not want his lifeblood to drain to away on the floor of his hall. He scanned the room for his brother. Jean had engaged de Roncier himself and, like most of the St Clair men, he had not had time to don his hauberk.

‘You won’t get away with this,’ Jean gasped, making a pass at the Count.

De Roncier side-stepped nimbly and lifted his lips in a snarl. ‘You think not?’

Jean made another stroke. ‘They’ll know who did this.’ François lunged, aiming for the knight’s heart. Jean turned his opponent’s blade aside with a grace that brought a smile to Waldin’s lips.

‘Neatly done, brother,’ Waldin breathed approvingly, and started clearing a path towards them.

‘The Duke will suspect,’ Jean ground out, ‘when it comes to light that we’re at odds in his lawcourt.’

François shook his head.

‘Who else would dare break the Duke’s peace? This land is his, and his writ is absolute here.’

François held up a mailed hand. ‘If you’ll hold off a moment?’

Jean nodded and shifted his sword to one side, eyes wary, but listening.

A wolfish gleam fired in the ruined hazel eyes. ‘You must know that a band of pirates have taken to mooring their ships in the Small Sea,’ François said. ‘They’ve been working their way up the estuaries, of which yours is but one. They take cover in the forest. I think you’ll find it’s the pirates who shoulder the blame for this, not I.’

A blond hulk blocked Waldin’s view, and made a pass. Waldin turned it aside without conscious thought, and tried to forge towards his brother and the Count, but the hulk had a long reach and barred his way. Waldin swore, for his mind was set on purging the world of the parasite that was de Roncier.

His brother and the Count re-engaged. Little by little, de Roncier was driving Jean back to the gaily tiled hearth. Waldin frowned. Another step and Jean would be dancing on hot ashes. He saw his brother’s sword sweep wide of the mark, and his frown deepened. That was not his brother’s style, a four year-old could have done better. What was he up to?

But almost before that question had finished forming, Waldin’s febrile mind threw up an answer. Jean was not even trying. Staring at his brother, it dawned on Waldin that for months they’d been gazing at the face of a man who had already suffered a mortal blow and was scarcely keeping body and soul together. Behind the front, his brother had crumbled to dust. Jean had relinquished responsibility for military matters, and he had not merely been providing a bored brother with something to stop him twiddling his thumbs. The delegation had been total. Jean had had the stuffing knocked out of him. He had lost interest in life, he had given up. He remembered the moves – witness that brilliant warding pass he had made a few moments ago – but he was not choosing to use them. Since the day his wife had died, Jean had been a shell of a man.

Waldin flicked his wrist, and severed an artery in the neck of a de Roncier trooper. Petrified, the soldier stared at Waldin with the eyes of a man who knew that he had been dealt a mortal blow. He toppled slowly, soundlessly, his blood pumping into the rushes. Jean was practically in the fireplace. Stepping over the fallen man and forcing his way through the scrimmage, Waldin went to give him aid. It was far better to go on your own home ground, he thought grimly. Far better to go fighting for a brother you loved than to die on a stranger’s land for a cause you had no share in. He would have his warrior’s death, and it would be a burning, glorious, defiant death. He’d fight to the bitter end, and if he couldn’t take François de Roncier with him, he’d have to trust in God to see that that swine’s felonies did not go unrewarded.

Crouching in the doorway, Gwenn stared at a scene from the mouth of Hell.

Gone was the well-ordered hall she had sat and sewed in with her mother. Pallets still strewed the floor, mute testimony to the unexpectedness of the attack. Lying across the bedrolls were bodies; but the bodies were broken, bloodied bodies, and the sleep those men were sleeping was not one from which they would ever awaken. Men were screaming. Men were groaning. Men were chillingly silent. Transfixed with horror, Gwenn was unaware that her sister had left the women and was climbing down the winding stairs after her.

Catching sight of Roger, her father’s squire, for one moment Gwenn fancied him festooned with red silk ribbons. Then she realised the lad was beribboned with his own guts. Her gorge rose and she reeled back. She forced her gaze back to the conflict. She was rigid with fear for her father. She had to see for herself that he was numbered among the quick. And where were Waldin and Raymond? Were all the men she loved dead already? What of Ned? At first she could not mark any of them among the seething mass of fighting, living men. Her eyes were skimming the lifeless forms sprawled over pallets and rushes, when the fray cleared in front of her and she was granted a clear view of her father.

Jean and Waldin were standing hip to hip, measuring swords with a man whom Gwenn did not recognise. She had picked up enough knowledge of arms from her menfolk to know at a glance that the man’s hauberk and helm were out of the ordinary. This must be the detested Count de Roncier. He shouted hoarsely, and in an instant four soldiers were at their lord’s side, their swords directed at the St Clair brothers.

Her breath was coming in fast, uneven gasps. She tried to swallow, couldn’t. Though it was unnecessary, for the brothers had seen de Roncier, she tried to shout a warning. The words lodged in her throat. Her legs were unable to support her, and she sank to her knees.

A shadow fell over her. A blood-smeared face stared wildly into hers and her heart dropped and thumped about in her stomach. Under the red streaks, the face was pale, and one that she knew. ‘Ned!’ she blurted, giddy with relief, for she had feared that her last moment had come.

‘Get upstairs!’ Ned gasped, pointing with his sword.

Without his gambeson he looked alarmingly vulnerable. He had a helmet, but it was dented. His tunic was torn and hanging off one shoulder. His knuckles were scraped raw.

‘Ned...’ Sick with fear, Gwenn pinned her eyes on his face, for bloody and changed as her father’s captain was, he was at least recognisable. Nothing else in that hell of a hall was the least bit familiar.

‘Move, Gwenn.’ He was so concerned for Gwenn’s safety, that not only did he forget the title that was her due, he reinforced his command by giving her a bruising kick on the thigh. ‘Get upstairs,’ he said, and groaned in frustration when she didn’t obey him.

‘Papa!’ White as bone, Gwenn looked past Ned at the figures grouped round the fireplace. Ned’s fist clenched. ‘Papa!’ she repeated, on a rising note. She shot Ned a look of agony. ‘Where’s the glory in this?’

‘Gwenn, you must–’

‘This is butchery, not glory. Look! Five against two!’ Ned whirled round ‘Give them aid, Ned. Please.’

It was then that Katarin reached the comfort of her sister’s skirts.

‘Katarin!’ Gwenn exclaimed, and her hands came up to shield Katarin’s eyes.

‘I’ll help them,’ Ned said. ‘But you must go up. For your sister, if not for yourself.’

Gwenn nodded and, sword up, Ned dived back into the mêlée.

If Gwenn was rigid with fear, Katarin had slipped into another world altogether. The little girl’s sixth sense had informed her that today was going to be worse than the day her mother had died. Afraid that Gwenn might be stolen from her too, she had crept after her. The women upstairs had tried to restrain her, but Katarin had wanted Gwenn, no other would do. Katarin wound her arms tight as bindweed about her sister’s narrow waist.

Ned fought his way to the fire. ‘Sir Jean! I’m with you!’

Jean grunted acknowledgement. Both he and his brother had a crimson-tipped sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. They were fighting like Saracens, but it was only a matter of time before one of them went down.

‘Get out, Ned!’ Jean gasped between strokes.

‘Sir?’ Ned shouldered an iron candlestand onto one of de Roncier’s company, and found himself smiling when the man backed onto Denis the Red’s blade.

Jean jerked his head at the stairwell. ‘Gwenn...’

Ned’s heart missed a beat, for Gwenn had not gone up as she had promised. She and her sister were kneeling, and Gwenn was staring straight at them, watching them like a frightened rabbit watches the hound that is about to tear it limb from limb.

‘Get her out!’ Jean yelled. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his brown eyes. ‘Get them upstairs!’

De Roncier lunged, and a thin ruby line sprang across St Clair’s lean cheek. The blood mingled with his perspiration.

Clashing swords with a de Roncier henchman, Ned saw another drop to his knees. Waldin was giving a good account of himself.

‘To me!’ François de Roncier bellowed. ‘To me!’ And two more of his company sprang out of nowhere like dragon’s teeth in the ancient fable. Both these men were confident enough to be grinning, and one of them had been causing havoc with an axe. He was no stranger to Ned.

Ned gulped. ‘Malait!’

Recognition flared in the cool Nordic eyes and, astonishingly, the flailing axe paused. ‘Greetings – Fletcher, isn’t it? You switched horses once. I take it you’re not of a mind to do it again?’

The only response was a deft twist of Ned’s wrist, a trick Waldin had taught him. It sent Ned’s blade slicing through the air and wiped the smirk from the Viking’s lips. To save his nose, Otto leapt backwards and, slipping in some blood, went sprawling.

‘Fletcher!’ Jean roared. ‘Run, damn you!’ Breathing hard, he punctuated his words with wide, sweeping sword strokes. ‘God curse you...I’m commanding you... Run! Take Gwenn, and run.’

‘Wh...where?’

‘The woods. Christ’s wounds, anywhere but here! Do what you have to, but keep Gwenn and the children safe.’ Never had Ned received an order more to his liking, but he hesitated, and a razor-sharp blade whistled past his ear. ‘Well? Do you obey me?’

Ned put on a ragged smile, remembering how St Clair had warned him off his daughter. ‘Aye, sir. I’d die for Mistress Gwenn.’

‘I hope...’ Jean was tiring ‘...it won’t come to that. If...if it come to the worst...take them north... Relatives...north...’

‘Where?’

‘Gwenn knows.’ Jean gasped, and his cheeks went grey. The blade of his opponent dripped scarlet. Dropping his dagger, the knight clapped a hand to his ribs.

Ned started forwards. ‘Sir Jean!’

Waldin caught Ned’s left hand and thrust something at him. ‘Go, lad! Take this. Don’t let her look back.’ And the champion booted Ned in the small of the back, leaving him no choice but to race for the stairs.

Ned thrust whatever it was that Waldin had given him down the front of his tunic.

Jean flung a dazzling smile at his foes and made a dreadful pass a limbless leper could have evaded. François de Roncier’s men closed in for the kill. The final blow, when it came, was greeted with another of those extraordinary smiles.

Blackness. Tumult. Screaming. Pressed to her sister’s side, Katarin’s mind was spinning faster than a wheel. Her sister had made a blindfold of her hands, and had covered her eyes, so she could see nothing. She felt Gwenn’s body jerk as though she’d been hit. Someone screeched. To the child, the screaming sounded like the end of the world. Who was it? Not Gwenn? Not Papa? There was no comfort in the blinkered dark behind Gwenn’s hands. Katarin felt smothered. Was not death dark? A war had broken out in her father’s hall, and she had to see.

Impulsively, she shoved at Gwenn’s hands. They fell at the first push. Her hazel eyes blinked into flaring torchlight which made monsters of the men upon whom she gazed. Katarin’s heart banged louder than a drum and seemed to add to the uproar.

One of the monsters was tearing towards her. His eyes shone like blue lamps and his helmet was askew. His cheek was streaked with red paint, and there was more of it daubed on his hair. It was a moment before Katarin realised that the monster was Captain Fletcher. She whimpered. And because his expression was more frightening than the darkness beneath Gwenn’s blanketing hands, she looked beyond him and saw what no child should ever see.

She saw her father as the cold steel of his enemy’s sword was buried in his chest. Katarin saw everything – the sudden gush of bubbling blood on her father’s lips, the gloating triumph lighting the eyes of the shining metal man towering over her father, and the impotent rage which distorted her uncle’s face. She even saw her father’s final, serene smile.

How peaceful Papa looks, Katarin thought, in all this horror. Death sits well on him. And with a pang, she wondered if Papa would be able to talk to Mama now he had joined her. Katarin would like to be peaceful too...

Ned hauled on Gwenn’s arm, trying to lift her. Terrified that she and her sister were to be torn asunder, Katarin squeaked and buried her face in the warmth of Gwenn’s breast. She clung like fury. She’d seen enough.

Blackness. Tumult. Screaming.

‘Come, Gwenn. Come with me,’ Ned said urgently. Katarin felt herself lifted. She shuddered. Was there no peace left on the earth? Katarin only wanted to be quiet, and peaceful.

‘Take Katarin.’ That was Gwenn’s voice. Katarin screwed up her eyes in case they should open without her willing it. Didn’t Gwenn want to be with her? Releasing her sister, Katarin slapped her hands over her ears. She’d heard enough. Outside her own, small self, there was nothing. With eyes and ears closed, Katarin began stumbling about in her mind for a quiet place where she could hide from the ravening monsters. And while Ned carried her up the endlessly twisting stairs, she found what she was searching for. It was a refuge, a haven, deep in a secret part of her she had not visited before. It was heaven, for no one could touch her when she was there. She was safe. Her eyes remained closed. The rosebud mouth relaxed. Her private retreat was all brightness and calm. There were no dark shadows which might shroud the Devil. God was not there either, because since last August when her mother had died, Katarin had stopped believing in God. But there was peace in abundance, peace and quiet. And because peace was all Katarin wanted, she resolved never to leave her sanctuary; never, ever again.

Casting a final look round her father’s devastated hall, Gwenn noted, with the cold detachment of one who has taken more than she could stomach, that Raymond had fallen. Her brother lay on his belly in the rushes, still as death. His sword had been knocked from his hand, and his head was twisted to one side, brown hair half concealing a gaping wound across temple and ear. Even at this distance Gwenn could see it glistened with blood. The rest of him was pale as alabaster. The Archangel Gabriel could not help him now.

With a resolution that yesterday she would have condemned as callousness, Gwenn slammed the door at the bottom of the stairs, threw the heavy bolts home, and darted after Ned and Katarin. At the top of the spiral, she rammed the second door shut and barred that too.

‘Thank God your father built these doors,’ Ned said, frantically calculating how long they would hold out against a sustained assault. And more as reassurance for himself, he added. ‘The twists of the spiral favour me.’

Stooping to pick up her sister, Gwenn frowned. ‘I don’t see–’

‘The stairs were constructed to favour the defenders – the turns favour a right-handed swordsman at the top,’ Ned explained briefly, while he sized up the solar with a military eye. This was the first time he had entered the women’s quarters and private family rooms. They were smaller than he had imagined, barely large enough to hold the beds. Ned saw nothing that he could put to use in this crisis, not even another door to barricade the children behind.

Feet thudded overhead. Looking up at the rafters, Ned swallowed a curse. His worst fears had not included de Roncier’s company scaling the tower walls. If the Count’s wolves were prowling the ramparts...

Most of the women were weeping, save two. Of these braver souls, one – he recognised Mary – was crouched before an ugly pink statue of Our Lady, praying. The other, the wet nurse, Johanna, was cradling St Clair’s heir. Seeing that Johanna’s dark eyes were pinned on him, Ned addressed her. ‘Did anyone think to bolt the door to the parapet walk?’

The wet nurse started, blushing like a coy virgin. ‘No. No. I don’t think–’

‘Christ save us!’ Ned tried to distinguish the thumps and scurryings overhead, but with the uproar from below, it was impossible.

‘What is it, Ned?’ Gwenn’s touch on his arm made him start.

He did his best to smile. ‘We’re bottled up. They’ve got to the roof, and they’ll be coming at that door from above and below. When I defend you from the landing–’

‘No, Ned!’ She saw immediately what he was driving at. ‘It would be suicide! You must stay in here.’

Crazily, Ned’s spirits lifted. So she did care, a little. Then he remembered he was the only protection she had. ‘But mistress, I must–’

‘Defend us from here. I want you in here.’

It made little difference, Ned thought wretchedly, whether he fought in or out of the solar. In the end, the outcome would be the same. So much for St Clair’s carefully constructed stairs. He spread his hands.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You’d best prepare yourself.’

Juggling her sister in her arms, Gwenn drew a battered dagger from her sleeve. It was rusty enough to have belonged to one of the Knights of the Round Table. ‘They’ll not get me.’

‘No, mistress,’ Ned said as reassuringly as he could. ‘They’ll not harm a woman.’

The wet nurse gave a distressed murmur and clutched the baby to her breast. ‘They’ll hurt my little lamb though, won’t they, Captain?’

Ned bit his lip and placed a bruised hand on the baby’s fluffy hair. He couldn’t find it in his heart to lie to the woman, whose dark melting eyes were brimming with great love for the infant. There was no doubt that de Roncier had come for the babe, and it was beginning to look as though God had decreed that Philippe St Clair’s lifespan would be short. If only Sir Jean’s much-vaunted improvements had included building another way out of the solar...

‘They’ll not harm Philippe! I’ll not permit it!’ Gwenn declared, eyes glowing with a martial light.

Ned was desperate enough to clutch at straws. He scoured the solar for inspiration. St Clair had entrusted him with his children’s lives, and though there had not been time to confer with him, Ned had the distinct impression that he assumed they could escape. ‘Take Gwenn and run,’ he had said. Run. But they were trapped. How could they run?

He spoke aloud, ‘There must be a way out.’ If Jean St Clair thought they could escape, then escape they could. There was a window seat below a couple of narrow window slits, piled high with hastily tidied bedlinen. No inspiration there. There were a couple of sleeping chambers, a privy, a pile of rubble left by the mason...