The Rose at Twilight (6 page)

The fire was dying. Looking around, she saw a small pile of logs beneath the window, which she had not seen before because the bed hid them from view from the doorway. She got to her feet and carried two to the fire, putting them on carefully so as not to send sparks flying; and only when she had finished did she realize something was missing from the room. She had been thinking, then moving about, and for a moment she could not imagine what she missed. Then she recognized the silence.

His harsh breathing had provided a background for her thoughts. She had paid no heed to it, but it had been there. Now it was not.

Fearfully she got to her feet again and moved toward the bed. His lips were parted, but there was no movement, no sound. She reached to touch him, then snatched her hand back when a frisson of fear shot through her body. Backing away, she felt a surge of panic, overwhelming, terrifying panic; and whirling, she ran to the door only to stop with her hand on the latch. Frozen, she fought to regain control over her emotions, to think.

Remembering that there might be men hidden in the castle, she knew she dared not give any alarm that would bring soldiers running. For that matter, she dared not raise any alarm at all, not because of the men who might be hiding, but for her own sake. What Sir Nicholas would do if he discovered that she had slipped away to be at her father’s deathbed did not bear contemplation.

For the first time she gave thought to the fact that she had exposed herself to death. It had been easy to keep the thought at bay while her father lived, while she needed to speak with him. Her determination to see him and to get information from him had outweighed every other consideration. But, alone with his dead body, she had been nearly overcome by a fear deriving from something far older, more primitive, and much more powerful than mere concern for possible fugitives. That same terror of death still urged her to run screaming from the room.

Forcing herself to stare at the door, not to look back at the corpse in the bed, she made herself breathe slowly and deeply, a technique Anne had taught her. Anne had discovered it for herself after years of coping with her father’s sudden whims, whims that had often resulted in drastic, undesirable changes in Anne’s life. Alys had never known the formidable Earl of Warwick, for he had died when she was three, but she was certain that should she ever encounter him (if she were unfortunate enough to displease God and be sent to Warwick’s undoubted place of unrest), she would know him at once, so much had she heard about him from Anne and his long-suffering countess.

From Warwick, her thoughts flashed instantly and of their own accord to the present earl. Neddie was less than ten years old, nephew of the late king, and no doubt now in Tudor hands. This sharp reminder of her changing world steadied Alys as the careful breathing had not. She could not run screaming from this place of death. She had to devise a plan, to make decisions.

First she decided she would find the old woman and tell her Lord Wolveston was dead. Then, while the crone did whatever needed doing, Alys would search. That thought came to a dead halt, however, when she remembered how ill-lit the castle was. She dared not light torches, nor could she carry one from room to room, and certainly not down into the murky depths of the place. Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that even if she might have done so undetected, she did not have the courage to do so alone.

It was chilly by the door. Without looking at the bed, and without really thinking about what she was doing, she moved back to the hearth to warm herself. Once there, she looked down into the fire as though she might find answers in its leaping flames. Her conversation with her father repeated itself in her head, but his words still made no sense. She was calm now, her fears gone, kept at bay so long as she did not look at the bed, so long as she kept her mind on other things. She decided at last to get the old woman, and found herself hoping she had not gone far.

The fact that Goody Spurrig might have gone away altogether occurred to her as she lifted the door latch, bringing a fresh wave of fear that threatened to undo all her calm, but the fear proved groundless. The old woman was hunkered down near the parapet wall opposite the door, her black gown making her appear wraithlike in the glow of firelight that spilled onto the gallery’s stone floor when Alys opened the door.

“I think he is dead,” Alys said quietly.

“Aye, he was near,” the crone agreed, rising with difficulty and moving toward her.

Alys stepped aside to let her pass into the room. “Will you tell them below?”

“Wi’ the dawning. No need afore that. They care not.”

Alys nodded. “You say there is no one else in the castle?”

The crone shrugged. “Nane as I know, m’lady. Ain’t seen no one. Best tha’ goest now. He hath no further need o’ thee.”

“Aye, or ever, I suppose.” Alys turned back to the door.

“Thy cope, mistress.” The crone picked up the heavy dark gray cloak from the floor where Alys had dropped it.

Alys stared at it, feeling an inexplicable desire to laugh. She would, she thought, make a poor conspirator. She had forgotten all about Sir Nicholas’s cloak, had not looked toward the bed, and thus had not seen it lying nearby. She took it and draped it over her shoulders. It was heavy and still damp from the mists. Even so, it was enveloping and made her feel warmer.

“I will go now. Thank you, dame, for your care of him. I shall see that you are properly rewarded.”

The old woman’s eyes gleamed, but there was skepticism there, too, making Alys determined to see that Sir Nicholas provided recompense for her loyalty.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back on the hillside, hugging the heavy cloak about her, wondering if she had really ever been hot. It was almost cold enough now to be winter instead of early September. She had encountered no difficulty in leaving the castle the way she had entered it, and now, ahead and below her, she saw the golden glow of three small fires, the encampment. She hoped she would be able to recognize her tent. It was the largest, she thought. But suddenly she was not certain, and the panic that had lain dormant within her leaped at the thought.

Hurrying, hearing unfamiliar noises with every step, she glanced around, fearing that ghosts or worse might fly out at her from the dark mists. One noise up ahead sounded like a shout, but she could not be certain because the murmuring of the nearby river muted the sound. Holding up her skirts; she moved as quickly as she dared, hoping she would not stumble over the treacherous bracken, would not kick against a stone and fall.

The change of light ahead alerted her. She had been watching the ground, using the glow from the fires as her beacon without actually looking at them, to see shadows of higher shrubs, of rocks and other obstacles in her path. But suddenly it was easy to see where she was going, far too easy. She stopped in her tracks and looked up.

There were torches now, lighting shadows that moved around the three fires, and more torches moving toward her, their light casting shadows of men approaching on foot. Recognizing what had happened put no strain on her imagination, and her first impulse was to run toward the river, where she knew from her childhood there were places she could conceal herself at least until daylight. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run away and hide, to do anything rather than face Sir Nicholas. He would be angry. She did not know why she was certain of that; she just was. And though she did not know exactly why she feared his anger, she did fear it. That he was a man was enough. Masculine displeasure was something to avoid.

But Alys was no coward. Though it took effort, she stood her ground, watching the small procession draw nearer and nearer, as if he had a string attached to her, she thought, knowing even as the thought flitted through her mind that it was a foolish one. He was moving up the hill toward Wolveston, and she stood in a direct line between camp and castle.

A moment later the searchers were upon her. She stood straight, knowing she must look very small to them. Certainly, Sir Nicholas loomed over her. In the torchlight now surrounding them, she saw that his eyes blazed with anger.

“Where have you been?”

“If I told you I had been walking in my sleep and somehow wandered up the hill, would you believe me?” she inquired softly.

He grunted, his right hand catching her upper arm in a bruising grip. When he turned, pulling her with him, the men parted before him, letting them pass. She saw their faces, grim faces, the men as displeased with her as their master was.

Alys swallowed, wanting to speak but unable to do so as long as he forced her to hurry along at such a pace. A moment later he seemed to realize that she was having nearly to run to keep up with his long strides, for he slowed a bit.

“You are hurting my arm,” she said.

“You deserve more than a sore arm,” he retorted.

“My father is dead.”

Sir Nicholas halted abruptly, turning to face her. “I am sorry for your loss, my lady, but I told you there was nothing you could do to help him. You ought not to have disobeyed me.”

She glared at him, having nothing to say, wanting only to defy him and not knowing in the least why she should wish to do any such thing.

He returned her look for a long moment, then turned away, urging her forward again, though at a slower pace than before, and his grip no longer bruised her. When they reached the encampment he did not take her to her tent as she expected him to do, but led her toward the central fire.

To her horror she saw that a whipping post had been erected there. Even as the fear shot through her mind that she was the intended victim, she saw that two soldiers were forcing a third to the post, a mere lad, thin, with tousled russet hair. In a twinkling he was secured, his arms stretched over his head, his back bared. When Alys saw the larger of the other two—a truly enormous man—reach for a whip, she shuddered and turned away.

Sir Nicholas’s grip tightened, and he forced her to turn back. “You will look,” he said grimly. “This is your doing.”

“Mine! How dare you?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “How can such a dreadful business be aught to do with me?”

“That lad yonder is Ian MacDougal,” he said. “Since he is only a Scotsman, I do not expect you to feel remorse, but you will watch because he is being punished for his carelessness on your behalf.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Ian was guarding your tent, Lady Alys. He has a weakness for pretty young women, and he trusted you. Had he fallen asleep, I would order him hanged. As it is, he will merely be flogged.”

Horror engulfed her mind, making her dizzy, and with the first crack of the whip she cried out and tried once again to pull away, but Sir Nicholas would not allow her to do so. When she shut her eyes at the second stroke, swaying against him, he muttered curtly, “You may shut out the sight, wench, but if you try to cover your ears, I’ll order your wrists tied behind you. It disappoints me to find you such a coward that you cannot look upon the result of your own misdeed.”

Alys winced at his tone, then winced again when young MacDougal screamed at the third stroke of the whip, but Sir Nicholas’s words echoed in her head, and she could not ignore them. Her misdeed, he had called it. The young Scotsman was being cruelly punished because of her, his dreadful suffering the direct result of her own disobedience.

She could not regret her visit to the castle. That was something she had had to do. But she could and did regret this. Never before had her actions resulted in such dire consequence to someone else. Because the lad had trusted her to remain where she was, because he had thought it unnecessary to watch the back of her tent as well as the front, he was suffering untold pain. The fault was her own, just as Sir Nicholas had said it was. She could not look, could not bear to watch the whip slashing against Ian’s bare back. But she would not attempt to stop her ears. She deserved to hear his screams. In faith, she deserved more than that, and when she remembered that Sir Nicholas had said a sore arm was little compensation for what she had done, she wondered if he would extract greater payment from her when Ian’s awful punishment was done.

The screaming stopped at last, and she opened her eyes in time to see Sir Nicholas sign to the man with the whip to stop the punishment. Ian hung by his wrists, limp, having passed out from the pain. For a moment Alys was afraid Sir Nicholas was only waiting for him to regain consciousness before ordering the punishment continued, but the two men moved forward and the smaller one drew his dagger from its sheath and cut the lad down. As she turned away with Sir Nicholas, she saw them lifting Ian gently between them. His back was marked with stripes, clearly visible even by firelight, and she saw that some were bleeding.

She said nothing until they reached her tent, but then she turned to face him, drawing on courage she had not known she possessed. “Do you intend to punish me, too, Sir Nicholas?”

He was silent long enough to stir the horrors again before he said quietly, “By the rood, I ought to do so. You endangered your own life by your foolish actions, and thus, since I am responsible to the king for your well-being, you endangered my future and that of my men. But I have no right, for all that, to punish you, being neither father, brother, nor true guardian.” He paused before adding very gently, “In future, mistress, I do advise you to take more caution.”

He would have turned away then, but repressing the chill stirred by his words, she stopped him. “You will bury them all—my family—in the morning before we leave here?”

He gave her another steady look. “Do you think us barbarians, that you must ask such a question?”

“No, sir, but I would look upon their faces before they are set to rest. In faith, I must.”

“As God is my witness, you will not. It is not safe.”

“By heaven, sir, I have stood by my father’s bed! If I am to contract the disease, I will do so whether I look upon my mother and brother, or do not.”

“Nonetheless …”

“You do not understand,” she said desperately. “Their souls will not rest if I do not speak a proper farewell!”