Child of the Phoenix (159 page)

Sir John narrowed his eyes. ‘If that is true, sir, God help you and Lady Mar when the king finds out. Your lives won’t be worth that!’ He snapped his fingers under Nigel’s nose. ‘For pity’s sake, give in, man. Your life may be forfeit, but won’t you think about that old woman? Are you prepared to see her dragged to London in chains? Do you think King Edward would spare her anything?’

Following the sudden change of direction of Nigel’s eyes, he swung round and found himself facing Eleyne who had entered the hall as he spoke. She bowed to him coldly. ‘I am grateful for your concern for my welfare, Sir John, but I am confident it’s not necessary. I have no intention of allowing Edward the satisfaction of having me as his prisoner. Kildrummy will soon be free. And if the man who dares to call himself Prince of Wales wants to save his skin, I suggest he raises this siege and returns to England as soon as he possibly can.’

Sir John scowled. ‘And just what makes you think this great army is on its way to help you?’ His voice was full of sarcasm. ‘You’ve had a message from them, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’ Eleyne smiled serenely. ‘We’ve had a message.’

‘That’s not possible. No one could get in or out of this place. It’s sealed as tight as a drum of butter.’ Sir John fingered the empty scabbard which hung at his sword belt. His weapon, according to the conventions of the flag of truce, had been left behind in his tent.

Neither Nigel nor Eleyne spoke, but both looked too sure, too pleased with themselves. For the first time he had a real qualm of doubt. ‘Very well, I can see you’re not going to listen to reason. On your own heads be it.’ He bowed curtly, first to Eleyne then to Nigel, and turned on his heel.

He walked slowly through the hall, his eyes darting here and there in the crowd of staring men and women: villagers, crofters, servants, a few of the castle garrison, resting between spells of duty. Perhaps he had miscalculated. His man was not there. But then he saw him, lounging near the door, his leather apron stained. He was chewing a stem of straw.

Sir John stopped and deliberately caught the man’s eye. Then he turned, addressing the whole hall. ‘The man who burns this place to the ground and delivers Kildrummy Castle to the King of England will win the safety of his wife and children and a bag of gold so large he cannot carry it away!’ His ringing tones carried the length of the great hall.

From the dais Nigel roared back: ‘There isn’t a man in this castle who would take up your offer, Sir John. Don’t waste your breath, my friend. Go back to your camp and keep your gold!’ A subdued murmur of support came from the hall around them.

Sir John bowed silent acknowledgement of Nigel’s words and turned on his heel.

‘Did he really think any of our people would betray us?’ Eleyne was tight-lipped with anger as she gripped the handle of her walking stick. ‘Foolish man.’

‘He’s desperate. Edward of Caernarfon won’t like the news that his mission has failed, or the titbit about the imminent arrival of Robert’s army.’ Nigel stopped. ‘I suppose … No, no, of course there’s no doubt. He is on his way.’

She smiled at him serenely. ‘There is no doubt, Nigel. Trust me.’

VII

Hal Osborne was standing at the entrance to his smithy. The fire was out, the bellows silent. His small sons were playing in the dust on the floor. The eldest, Ned, was old enough to work those bellows for short periods, heating his father’s roaring furnace to white heat. If the castle fell, the men would die. Ned might die. He was old enough for a man’s work; he was old enough to use a catapult; perhaps he was old enough for a man’s death.

He looked sourly across the courtyard, where Sir Nigel Bruce was talking to one of the men-at-arms near the bakehouse. But for Bruce he would have gone with the queen, and if it wasn’t for the countess’s ill-tempered horse, his leg would be whole. Christ and all his devils curse them both to hell! He could have gone. It was her fault he was here, her fault that if the castle fell, he would die. What loyalty did he owe her? He folded his arms, his eyes going back to the two boys as they scuffled in the dust. None. What chance was there of the siege being lifted? None.

And think of the gold.

VIII

Eleyne was already undressed, wrapped in her bed gown, when Nigel was ushered into her bedchamber by Bethoc, who poured them each a goblet of spiced wine and then left them alone. He sat down opposite her and cradled the hot goblet between his hands. ‘Can you summon your visions at will?’ he began without preamble.

Eleyne stared down at the empty hearth. ‘Sometimes.’ She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘Could you do it now?’

She didn’t answer for a long time. ‘Perhaps. I need fire.’

‘Fire?’ He looked at the single candle burning on the table near them.

‘Fire. I see the pictures in the flames; in the embers. There are things I can sprinkle on the flames which help; dried herbs. What do you want to know?’

‘I need to know how long.’ He stood up in a sudden lithe movement, nervy as a cat, and began to pace the floor. ‘I have a bad feeling here.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Something is wrong.’

‘With the castle?’

‘I don’t know, I’m just worried. Supposing they don’t come! Supposing your dream was just that – a dream?’ He rubbed his cheek with the flat of his hand. ‘Supposing Kirsty and the others didn’t make it. Supposing Robert decided to leave Scotland and go to Ireland for a while. Supposing we are alone!’

‘You can suppose any number of things, my dear,’ Eleyne said gently. ‘We all have our nightmares as well as our dreams.’ She took a sip from her drink. ‘Did you check the night guard?’

He nodded. ‘They’ll change when the chapel bell rings.’ He resumed his pacing. ‘If I were to have a small fire made up here – we can say it’s because of your age and aching bones –’ He gave her a mischievous look, gone as soon as it had come to be replaced by a look of infinite weariness. ‘Would you consider looking into it for me?’

‘Of course I will. But I can promise nothing. I’ll go down to the stillroom and find the right herbs.’ She was groping for her stick when she sat back in her chair, her head cocked to one side, listening.

‘What is it?’ He was watching her tensely.

‘I thought I heard something. A horn …’

He was at the window in two strides, leaning out, staring down the glen. The silence in the room was intense. Then he turned back to her, disappointment clear on his face. ‘I can see nothing.’

‘He will come,’ Eleyne said firmly.

IX

In the silence of the stillroom she peered around, her candle held high. The room was so full of memories; so many deaths: Donald, Gratney, William, Elizabeth, Muriel; so many illnesses cured: childhood snuffles and croups, broken bones, earaches and headaches and wounds. So many visions, conjured from the flames with the aid of mugwort and apple and ash and rosemary and lavender and thyme. The air was heavy with the fragrance of dried herbs, the beams hanging with this year’s crop. Taking a small linen bag from the hook beneath the high workbench, she went deftly from jar to jar collecting what she needed. Then she blew out the candle.

As she did every evening, she stopped in the nursery to say goodnight to her grandchildren. They were asleep together, bathed and in clean nightgowns, two small dark heads on the pillow. She stood looking down at them, smiling, then stiffly she bent to kiss each one in turn. ‘Sweet Bride keep you safe.’ Her knuckles were white on the handle of her stick, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears.

The castle was silent. On the walls the watch patrolled up and down, their eyes ever straining for a sign of siege ladders or engines being pushed closer under cover of darkness. In the smithy Hal Osborne leaned against the wall, chewing a stalk of barley between his teeth. His leg ached unbearably. Beyond him, in the back of the small heather-thatched building which was his home and place of work, his wife and two children slept on their straw pallets. She was a local girl, from a farm beyond the village. One day it would be his and then it would be his sons’. His chest tightened with love as he listened to the small snoring sounds his younger son made as he slept, his throat clogged by mucus. If the castle was taken that child would die, both his children would die, and his wife too, after she had been raped a dozen times.

Unless.

Silently he stood up. The English envoy had made the position clear. There was money and safety waiting for the man who gave Kildrummy Castle to the English.

On silent feet he walked across the courtyard, feeling the cold cut of the wind from the hills. The place was deserted. He made his way across to the bakehouse, where the ovens were already heating to bake the morning’s bread. Only one woman was there, sleepily feeding firewood to the blaze. Behind her the long trays of barley loaves lay on a table, proving beneath their linen cloths. Her face lightened when she saw Hal. ‘It’s early, my friend. If you’ve come for breakfast you’re too soon.’ Her arms were still floury; but there were smears of soot across her apron.

He eyed her for a moment, wondering what would happen to her. She was a cheerful motherly soul; at least four children played round her skirts when she was away from her duties in the kitchen. He remembered her. She wasn’t part of the castle household. She was the baker’s wife from Mossat. He could see the signs of the siege on her face – the drawn lines around her mouth, the black circles beneath her eyes, the thinness of her arms. Her husband had taken his bow and his sword and gone at the very beginning with the first muster of men.

For a moment he hesitated.

‘Out of my way.’ She bustled around him busily. ‘I’ve no one to help this morning. If you’ve nothing to do but stand around like a gowk, you can help me put the bread in the ovens. The castle will be awake at first light.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve duties to perform, mistress. I need a light for my lantern.’ He produced the horn lantern which used to hang above the door of the smithy in the hours of darkness.

She tossed her head. ‘Take it then, and get out of my way.’ Already she had turned away to her loaves.

He took a spill and thrust it into the fire. The tallow candle in the lantern lit easily, burning with a feeble flickering flame which stank immediately of rancid meat as, carefully, he shut the transparent horn door. He grinned at her uncomfortably. He wanted to say something, something to prepare her, but there was nothing he could say. He turned away and vanished into the pre-dawn dark. Within seconds she had forgotten that he had been there.

The great hall, the mekill hall, the people of Kildrummy called it, was virtually empty when he pushed the door ajar and slipped into the smoky darkness. A few figures slept on straw pallets around the hearth, but there was no fire there. The smoke in the air was an echo from long-dead fires trapped in the cold air below the high vaulted roof.

The lantern light was too faint to light much more than a foot or two around him. Silently he crept towards the largest pile of sacks. There was barley, oats, a little wheat for the countess’s table and stacked straw sheaves, bound into bales and piled into heaps which reached higher than a man. He glanced round. No one was awake. No one had seen him.

Slipping behind one of the piles he opened the door of the lantern. Pulling a handful of straw from one of the sheaves, he thrust it inside and held it above the candle. In seconds it had caught. It burned with a fierce crackle in the silence, but still no one had awakened. With fear catching at his throat, he swiftly drew the burning straw across the base of the nearest pile of sheaves, seeing the sparks catching in a bright trail. Hurrying now, he turned to another pile then another and another, hearing the crackle behind him growing louder. A murmur came from the far side of the hall and he heard a sudden shout. Hurling his lantern high into the pile of stacked sacks, he turned and dived for the door. Coughing, his eyes streaming from the acrid smoke, he ran silently down the side of the hall and dived through the darkness to his smithy. Running inside he stooped and shook his wife awake. ‘Bring the children! Hurry! We’re getting out of here.’

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Sleepily she sat up, then in the open doorway she saw the first glow of fire. ‘What is it, Hal? What’s happened?’

‘The castle is being attacked,’ he said grimly, ‘but you and I will be safe. Come quickly. Follow me.’ He snatched up the sleepy boy and ran for the doorway.

The first tocsin began to ring as he stepped out into the courtyard and he could hear angry, frightened shouts from the watch. Someone ran across in front of him, a bucket in each hand from the deep well in the base of the Snow Tower – he could see the water slopping uselessly on to the dry cobbles.

He ran swiftly towards the gatehouse, his son clutched in his arms. Behind him he could smell the smoke now, and hear the crackle of the fire as the vast stockpile of grain and fodder in the hall caught. The noise was growing louder – turning into a dull roar.

Beside him a man appeared: the watch from the gatehouse tower. He was running towards the hall, shouting. He passed so close, Hal could have reached out and touched him, then he was gone, plunging into the smoke which billowed from the double doors of the great hall, leaving his post unmanned.

Hal smiled grimly. Putting the child down, he felt his way along the wall to the narrow stairway which led up into the winding chamber. There the windlass stood which raised the portcullis. Normally it took several men to work it, but his desperation gave him the strength of several men. Spitting on his calloused palms, he braced himself against the bar and began to push, his muscles straining and bulging. For a long moment nothing happened, then there was a groan from the pulley which led to the heavy counterweights in the ceiling. Sweat poured off him. He shut his eyes and pushed harder, hearing from below the lost wail of the little boy, waiting in the dark, and the terrified voice of his wife comforting him as they hid in the shadows. The sound gave him strength. Another superhuman shove and the windlass began to turn. Outside, beneath the gatehouse, slowly the portcullis began to rise. When it was only halfway up he knocked in the oak wedge and, his muscles screaming with agony, threw himself back down the stairs. Ducking under the ominously hanging spikes of the portcullis he reached the iron-studded gates and felt along them until he touched the passdoor with its triple bars. It was pitch-black in the shadow of the gatehouse. Gritting his teeth he heaved at the first bar. It was jammed. He pulled harder and at last it slid from its slots and fell to the ground. The second was easier, and the third. Grasping the heavy ring handle, he turned it and pulled the door open. Beyond it, the black barrier of the raised drawbridge barred the way.