Mesmerized (33 page)

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 go
ing, 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.”