When she came to, moments later, it was to a vision of Hell! Screaming men and horses – a black and grey billowing sky – the cloying fug of smoke. Unspeakable terror! Except for the fact that she was caught up in the arms of a beautiful girl! A girl who, though too clean and delicately fragrant to be real, seemed real! A girl who wanted something from her – who kept dragging at her, lifting her and yammering in her ear!
“Get up!” she was howling. “Quickly! We’ve got to get to safety! Get up!”
At that moment, Madeleine would not – could not believe that finding safety was possible. She hardly believed that she lived! A new cry of anguish, however, from her rescuer, drew her to look further into the maelstrom. The gate, she saw, was partially open but a pair of soldiers was rushing to close it, while closer in, others were sooling amongst the panicked animals. The look in her rescuer’s eyes told her that, though one life had been saved in the moments just passed, some great opportunity had also been lost.
Struggling, then, to coordinate her own legs, Madeleine allowed herself, along with the pony, to be hauled across the cobbles and into the stable and there, plopped onto a bed of straw.
“It’s closed!” her breathless helper stammered to another. “We’ve missed our chance.”
“Closed? But we were so close! What are we to do? Oh Marie! Why did you have to stop for this girl? We could have made it!”
And at that, Madeleine knew who they were – Lady Joan de Beaufort and Marie de Coucy! For some inexplicable reason, hiding in a stable! Dreaming, apparently, as she herself was, of escape from Clun Castle!
“We could not leave her, Joan! She would have been killed!”
As through a haze, Madeleine listened to the playing out of Marie’s frustration.
“Pah! Telling a noble the value of a peasant’s life is is pointless as telling a hat about hatpins. We must think now what to do!”
She went on, explaining that the gate had been open and the horses free. It was possible, then, that the Scots, at least, had escaped! Regardless of which, she assured Joan, Perceval would still be nearby and would be back for them!
“We must stay with the ponies! And be ready!”
Joan’s mind, it quickly became clear, was set on a different course.
“Marie, the adventure is over, can’t you see? We must go to Sir Roland and simply declare our intentions! He will yield to my wishes, certainly, since no sane person would ever dream of intentionally endangering a person of my royal stature!”
In the end, Marie pled for at least a temporary hold on testing that theory of invulnerability and Joan quietly accepted that, in the Welsh Marches, things might not be entirely as they ought! They would wait. For a little.
Madeleine heard the arguments only distantly and despondently. Her sisters, so far as she knew, were still wandering the dark halls of the castle – possibly even re-captured and imprisoned! If so, judging by the madness of Samuel Rowe, their fates were certainly sealed. Add to that the fact that these beautiful noble girls were also in fear of their lives! And don’t even think about the fact that their plans for escape had been thwarted, however unknowingly, by herself! If she lived out the night, she began to think, it would only be by the merest fluke!
Chapter 35 – Negotiations
In short order, the haystack fire was doused and the moon became more or less a full-time feature in the sky, its waning circle riding amongst woolly tufts of cloud like a fairy’s lamp in a field of sky-borne dandelions. At ground level, it became bright enough for watchers on the wall to see cloud shadows. And, it gradually became apparent, a more solid, earth-bound shadow that turned out to be the entire population of the village.
They’d waited hours for a signal from Jeremy, to say that his mission was completed. By the time the column of smoke appeared, they were cold, nerve-raddled and fed up. Glyndwr’s man had had his chance and their girls had not been freed! Now it was time to press the matter themselves. Under the leadership of Gwilym, accompanied by the ancients of the Plant Owain, they’d walked straight through the village, up to the castle wall and called out for Sir Roland.
A grinding, begruding conversation had followed.
Gwilym: The prisoners ye’re holdin’, Sir Roland – we would ask that ye release them.
Sir Roland: I have many prisoners in the castle, Reeve. Which would you be meaning, now?
Gwilym: Ye know who I mean, Milord. I mean my children.
Sir Roland: And why would I release your children, I wonder? They’ve been carrying messages, after all! Secret messages! As I’m sure you know, Reeve! To one of England’s avowed enemies! I think – and I’m sure the king will think – this is a crime that must be paid for!
Gwilym: They carried no messages to no one! They were lost in the forest an’ they found their way ‘ome again. That’s all.
Sir Roland: Ha! And I have a sword that cuts through stone! Don’t trifle with me, Reeve! Two knights in this castle swear they had to fight their way out of Clun Forest – to escape the followers of Owain Glyndwr! I spit when I say his name. (He spat.) That great thorn in the side of England; that scourge of the Marches. My knights risked all to rescue these children of yours. And now these children can’t remember anything of that? Don’t mistake me for a fool, Reeve!
Gwilym: Perhaps it’s your knights who were mistaken, Sire. Truly! The threat to these lands from Owain Glyndwr is surely a thing o’ the past!
Sir Roland: Mistaken? I warn you, Reeve. Think twice before you question the honesty of an English knight!
Gwilym: Their honesty’s not in question, Sire. I only wonder if their . . . perceptions . . . o’ the battle they fought . . . o’ the enemy they fought . . . might be . . . mistaken.
Sir Roland: Listen to me, Reeve! I have other prisoners in this castle. I have the daughters of Scots rebels who thought to take their chance, to stir trouble here in the Marches! How is it that Glyndwr lurks in my forest, playing host to your daughters, at the very moment when such as them arrive, eh? I’ll tell you how! This band of broken men is plotting! Plotting mayhem! And I’ll not have it! They’ll all be sent to London – the Scots, your daughters and these blasted Welsh rebels – as soon as the sheriff in Shrewsbury sees fit to collect ‘em! I tell you – I tell all of you, people of Clun – while Sir Roland Lenthall survives in the Marches, the king’s peace will be safe!
* * * *
At this stage, with little apparent hope of a peaceful resolution, Gwilym decided to risk a bluff. Somewhere in that castle, he knew, Jeremy Talbot lurked. And Jeremy, he knew, had had a plan.
Gwilym: Sir Roland, I think ye’re a man who knows the meanin’ of a family – of loved ones. As I do meself. As would even the great and terrible Owain Glyndwr, whose wife an’ daughters died in an English prison. If he was amongst us, he’d speak up, I think, for families. An’ I think you know that, if such a . . . cunnin’ schemer . . . was amongst us, he’d arrange for us to have somethin’ to bargain with. If such a terrible man was amongst us, he might suggest that you send someone, Sire. To see to your own family.
Sir Roland: My own family? Lady Margaret? How dare you . . .?
* * * *
And after a brief spell of outraged spluttering, Sir Roland did send someone – Samuel Rowe, to be exact – off to see to Lady Margaret’s well-being and, on his return, to bring Elizabeth Douglas to the gate house. Though it had been many years since he’d paid much heed to All Hallows Eve, on this one, he suddenly felt well and truly spooked.
While Rowe was gone, Sir Roland took the opportunity to cast some blustering threats in the direction of the villagers. What foolish game were they playing, this night? Why had they not lit the All Hallows bonefire? They were all clearly siding with a new uprising by Glyndwr and would all pay dearly. There would be a gallows built; there would be stocks; there would be noses slit and ears cut off and beheadings and dismemberments. So terrifying were his threats that many of the villagers began to back nervously away and to open up a circle a
round Silent Richard, who they believed to be Owain Glyndwr. Richard stood silently, expecting at any moment to be thrust forward as a sacrifice.
* * * *
In the castle’s stable, Joan, Marie and Madeleine noted how strangely quiet things had become since the fire had been doused. In the distance, they could hear the voice of Sir Roland, shouting from the gatehouse, but they couldn’t make out his words and they couldn’t hear at all that there were answers.
* * * *
By Myfanwy’s cart, Sir Perceval’s spilt senses were nearly back in order and he was struggling to focus them on the argument fifty yards away by the castle’s gate. Jack remained barely under the control of Myfanwy, so anxious was he to rush into the crowd of villagers, to find Richard and to report the capture and possible murder of Roger Ringworm. For her own purposes, and by the strength of her will, Myfanwy kept both the man and the boy at her side.
“Not yet!” she commanded them both. “The time is near, but it is not yet. Be still!”
* * * *
Maude, Anwen and Brenton had clung to one another in the shadowed passage for long, long minutes after Madeleine was dragged away by Samuel Rowe. All the while, Brenton’s laboured breath ripped through the stillness, telling a tale of increasing agony so that, by the time they gathered the courage to go on, he was failing badly and the girls struggled to support his weight. At the door to the courtyard, they’d stopped again, all three now gasping for air. Beyond the thick oaken planks, a faint, gradually subsiding din could be heard.
Though Brenton was all but insensible to anything other than his own pain, the two girls trembled uncontrollably. They reached out to touch one another – whether in encouragement or in farewell, even they would not have been certain. And then, slowly, Maude pried open the door.
A pall of smoke hung there and the stench of drenched ash, but there was no sign of the fire. Nor were there many men and those who were there were preoccupied with complaining horses. There being no safety behind them and little to lose ahead of them, they slipped haltingly out into the cold night air and, clinging to the stone wall, began a long, slow creep around the yard. The postern gate, as described to them by Jenny Talbot, was their one hope and it lay many yards off, indiscernible in the shadows.
Only then, pressing for haste, did they finally, fully realise the extent of the damage done to Brenton in his fight with Sir Cyril. His broken ribs made every breath feel like a kick from a dray horse and, though the girls were bearing as much of his weight as they could, the effort needed to keep him upright and moving had become too great. When his knees finally wobbled and buckled, the girls tumbled to the ground with him, helpless and exposed. They knew then that the postern gate, though only fifty yards away, might as well be in Shrewsbury. They would not make it this night.
Barely conscious, Brenton begged them to run. Adamant that she would not, Anwen settled down at his side. But Maude, in her special way, pictured immediately the one place no one would look for them. Virtually by force of will alone, she coaxed them toward the sodden, stinking haystack where the fire had been. The unconsumed portion remained plenty large enough for the dank cavity that Maude excavated – a cavity into which the three of them burrowed and disappeared. Over the next hour, as they lay shivering, the only ones to come near them were other residents of the stack – insects scraping and nesting mice, sniffing. It slowly became clear that, despite Brenton’s occasional moans, which Anwen stifled against her breast, they all – mice, insects and fugitives, were safe – for the moment.
Still, they could not be there when the sun rose. In tiny whispers that only they and the mice could hear, the girls reasoned that, at daylight, someone would come to inspect the damage – to spread the sodden hay for drying. Before that happened, they must be gone.
“I en’t leavin’ ‘im!” Anwen promised. “He saved us from them wolves an’ ‘e saved us from that knight! I en’t leavin’ ‘im!”
A long while passed. Silence, except for the vague, occasional sound of a distant voice, seemed to settle in the courtyard and Maude, whose courage had always lain in following Annie, found herself wishing she could simply fall asleep – could somehow forget their predicament.
“You got to go!” Anwen finally urged. “Jus’ go through the gate! Get papa! He’ll know what to do! You can do it!”
And so Maude’s resolution began to build. She would go, she said. She would try to return with help. No! She would not ‘try’! She would come back! If she had to come on her own – if she had to crawl on broken legs, she wept – she would not leave them there to be recaptured. She then wriggled cautiously through the foot or so of covering hay and poked her head out, like a worm poking its head out of an apple. The sound of the distant voice was clearer – and more clearly angry. But the part of the yard that she could see seemed to be empty.
She crawled the rest of the way out and spent a few moments clawing more hay down to re-cover the hole. Then she crouched down and wrapped her arms about herself. Her dress was damp and the air was cold. Also, the moon was out and its light made the shadows along the wall, twenty yards ahead, seem even deeper. But they were only shadows! You can pass through a shadow! And once through, there would be the gate and the narrow path with the castle wall hard on one side and the river bank hard on the other. Following that path would bring her onto clear ground and then to the village where Gwilym would hold her and she would tell him and he would come. He would know what to do.
That was the plan. But crouching beside the haystack, smearing tears and charcoal across her face, feeling cold and dread crawling through the pores of her skin, she could not make herself move. She berated herself, pinched herself, bit her tongue. Nothing she did could break the stasis into which she’d fallen. An insistence – something even beyond fear – told her with absolute certainty that, if she moved into that shadow, she would not emerge from it alive.
How long she squatted there, immobilised, she couldn’t have said but she did understand that the voice she’d begun to hear in her mind was that same soft alien one whose return she’d been so longing for.
“Watch,” it seemed to be saying. “Wait. Watch.” Alternating with it, she could hear, and struggled to ignore, Anwen’s words. “You got to go!”
Finally, with desperation crowding in on her, at the corner of her eye, spotlighted by a vagrant shaft of moonlight, a figure materialised. It was a man, moving from the direction of the castle’s front gate! A knight, judging by the glint of steel – moving quickly but silently.
“Very still now!” commanded the voice in her head quite clearly, and she was. Only her eyes moved.
He didn’t see her, though he moved toward the same shadows that so defied her; shadows that swallowed him in a single bite. Almost immediately, however, they spat back at her the clean bones of a low but urgent conversation. The fire of resolution she’d so determinedly been fanning winked and went out. The gate was guarded! They were trapped.
* * * *
The one person in the castle who knew for certain that Elizabeth Douglas, Annabel and Effemy had escaped was their loyal knight, Sir Angus of Atholl. Because he’d known where in the shadows to look, he’d seen their stealthy passage down the stairs from the keep. After lighting his diversionary fire, he’d watched and seen them open the gate, seen Elizabeth calmly lead the warhorses into the night. He’d have followed – he’d intended to follow – but the steward, Samuel Rowe, had scooped him up to help fight the fire that he himself had lit only minutes earlier. The pretence of helping, he’d quickly realised, was sure to give precious minutes to the women.
From then, it had been a matter of blending with the other knights – being careful to raise no suspicions. Even if it meant that he would be trapped – even if his subterfuge was discovered – his sense of duty would allow him to do nothing else. If it cost him his life, so be it! His charges would have had maximum opportunity to put miles between themselves and Clun. Blending, however, was hardly the same
as resigning himself to the situation.
When the villagers re-appeared, Sir Angus had joined the general movement of the curious toward the gatehouses. But at the last, he’d veered off. And it was his ghost-like passage toward the postern gate that Maude witnessed.
The young knight on guard at the postern was one of those on temporary loan from the FitzAlan’s Arundel estates, doing a stint of service in the remote west. Keen to impress the dour Samuel Rowe, he’d remained obstinately, anxiously at his post, despite the diversionary fire. He wasn’t about to be moved now, by some swaggering Scot!
“Don’t be an ass, man!” Angus growled. “Are ye not aware that there’s revolt festerin’ beyond? Can ye not hear? There’s a spy beyond yon gate even now, wi’ valuable news o’ their plans! I’m to fetch him to Sir Roland, wi’out delay! Now open it!”
Reluctantly, the man yielded, sliding the bolts and, sword drawn, pushing on the door. From Maude’s position, a sliver of light could be seen, opening up in the wall – moonlight reflected off the river. Slowly it extended. No waiting spy stepped forward.
There followed harsh words, quickly stifled cries of alarm, the clubbing sounds of mailed fists and the clash of steel. The figures of two knights in a close-fought duel staggered through the door. A great splash. Silence.
Maude waited for one or both of the men to reappear. Neither did. The gate lay open like a sleepy, malevolent eye. The warning voice in her mind had gone silent.
Chapter 36 – Crossed by Fate
When Samuel Rowe knocked on Lady Margaret’s door, there was no answer. But there was a briefly heard chirp of fear. A chirp too many for Rowe. He slammed open the door and strode in. The threats to his castle seemed to be multiplying absurdly and he would have no more of it. Susan, the source of the chirp, lay on her pallet, alone in the room, her face a mask of terror.