For Love And Honor (31 page)

When Will had thanked her and returned his
attention to Samira, Rohaise slid her left hand beneath the table.
Piers felt her press upon his thigh, and when he put his own hand
down she placed a small metal object into his palm.

“I could not take it off my girdle while I
was at the table,” she said. “Someone would have noticed.”

“Thank you.” He hid the key in the purse at
his belt.

“You should know,” she whispered, “that Baird
has a second key, which he uses when he tests the gate. ‘Twas last
tested two days ago, so the hinges are newly oiled and should be
silent.”

“My thanks again for the information.”

“Please be careful.” She spoke with her eyes
on Lys, who was serving a large oblong pudding set upon a silver
tray.

“It’s not I who will use the key,” Piers
said. “But thank you for caring.”

“Truly, Sir Spiros,” Rohaise said in a normal
voice as Lys approached with the pudding, “if you continue to thank
me for such a simple meal, I shall not know how to reply to you.
Lys, do give Sir Spiros a large square of the pudding. The recipe
is said to come from Lombardy, so the dish may be familiar to you,
sir.”

The pudding was baked in a pastry crust and
contained chopped prunes, dates, and dried figs in a mixture of
eggs and heavy cream, flavored with cinnamon and orange peel. Piers
had tasted lighter, more delicate versions in Italy.

“Excellent,” he said, smiling at Lys. She
looked back at him with cold, hard eyes and moved on to pass what
remained of the pudding to those at the lower tables.

Because of the premature darkness of winter
the inhabitants of the castle retired early. It was well before
midnight when Alain, Piers, Samira, and her maid, Nena, gathered in
Samira’s room.

“Here’s the postern key.” Piers gave it to
Alain. “Don’t lose it; we have to give it back to Rohaise before
anyone discovers it is missing.”

“If Baird has another, as you say, keeping it
for a day shouldn’t prove too risky,” Alain replied. He let Samira
attach the key to a leather thong and then fasten the thong around
his neck. This precaution completed, he looked toward the maid.
“Nena, have you talked to our squires recently?”

“Yes, sir. They have learned that in this
cold weather the guards on the walls don’t walk about as often as
they should. They look busy when Baird appears, but when he’s not
there, they try to stay inside as much as they dare.”

“Baird drank a fair amount of wine tonight,”
Alain remarked, pulling a loose black woolen tunic over the one he
was already wearing. “Let us hope he sleeps well and doesn’t waken
the guards too often.”

“
The
kitchen maids were teasing Lys,” Nena told him, blushing. “They
said when Baird drinks a lot, he wants his woman. Lys didn’t look
too ha
ppy about it.”

“I could almost feel sorry for Lys,” Alain
murmured.

“Let us hope her charms keep Baird well
occupied,” Piers said. “Are you ready, Alain?”

“I only need my knife.” Alain belted the
weapon at his waist.

“
Theo
Alain
…” Samira had been
a bit distracted during the preparations, and now she put out a
hand to keep Alain where he was. “You heard Will talking to me
tonight. He believes his mother loved Lord Crispin. How can we
break his heart by telling him otherwise? And what will he
think of us when all of this is over?”

“He’s a fine young man, isn’t he?” Alain
interrupted her questions. “I don’t want to break his heart,
either. Why don’t we let Joanna decide what to tell her son?”

“I suppose that would be best,” Samira
agreed.

“Alain, for God’s sake get moving, and get
this job done,” Piers said. “Every moment we stay here increases
the risk that we will be discovered. If we are found out, we will
have no chance to prove our innocence. We have to get the
information we need and then leave Banningford at once.”

“
I know,
old Sir Piers.” Alain clapped him on the shoulder. “Yours is the
harder task this night, to lie outside Samira’s door and pretend
you are asleep when you would much prefer to be with me. I
understand how much
depends on my ac
tions in the next few hours. I promise you, I will
not fail.”

“Theo Alain, where is the rope Nena and I are
to let down for you?” Samira asked.

“Here.” Alain opened his saddlebag. Along
with Piers’s bag, it had been tossed with apparent carelessness
into a corner of Samira’s room. Grinning at her and at Nena, hoping
to dispel their seriousness for just a little while, Alain pulled
out the rope and showed them the four-pronged metal hook attached
to one end.

“I was afraid I would have to sleep on this
grapple and pretend it was a pillow,” he said. “You are to give me
a little time to reach the spot below this arrow slit. Imagine me
creeping down the stairs to the entry hall and then out to the
inner bailey. Perhaps I will stop for a word or two with someone
who notices me, or possibly I will go to the stables to check on
our squires, which is my purpose for leaving the tower if anyone
should ask me. When no one is looking I’ll unlock the postern gate
and slip through the wall and then out onto that narrow ledge of
land between the wall and the moat. On tiptoe, because there won’t
be much room, I’ll stroll around to this side of the tower. When I
get here I would very much like to find this rope awaiting me.”

“
You make
it sound so eas
y.” Samira looked
doubtfully at the coiled rope and at the hooked
grapple. “There is scarcely a toehold at the base of the castle
wall, and the wall itself is so steep and smooth.”

“
It
will
be easy,” Alain assured her. “I will be climbing to heaven,
to see my love. All you have to do, ladies, is let the rope out of
the arrow slit. Do it slowly, so it doesn’t tangle or knot. Just
let it fall straight down.”

“The arrow slit is so narrow and the wall so
thick,” Nena protested. “We won’t be able to put our heads out to
watch the rope go down.”

“You couldn’t see it anyway, goose,” Samira
told her. “The night is dark and cloudy.”

“If you can’t see the rope, Nena,” Alain
said, “then neither can the guards on the wall. But I will find it
because I know it will be there. Now, Samira, the two of you will
have to hold the grapple as the last of the rope plays out. It is
too large to fit through the arrow slit, but we don’t want it to
make a loud noise when the prongs hit the stone wall, or damage the
wall for that matter. Chips in the stone around an arrow slit can
raise questions in the minds of men determined on complete security
for their castle.”

“I understand, Theo Alain.”

“Once the rope is let down,” Alain said,
“then comes the difficult part. You will have to stay awake until I
climb down to the ground again after I’ve talked to Joanna.”

“I will not sleep at all,” Samira
promised.

“Nor will I,” said Nena.

“When I reach the ground and I’m ready to go
back to the postern gate,” Alain said, “I’ll pull on the rope
twice. Then you are to haul it up and hide it in my saddlebag
again. After you’ve finished you may sleep. In the morning, I
promise I will tell you what happened.”

“Be careful,” Samira urged, kissing his
cheek. “I will pray for you.”

“It will be all right,” Alain promised.

*
* * * *

It was bitterly cold climbing up the rope,
and the leather gloves Alain wore did nothing to keep his fingers
warm. The climbing was not hard for him; he had always been an
active man and had climbed into the rigging of many a ship, or
swung from ship to ship on a rope. He had scaled the walls of a few
castles, too, in Italy and Greece. He knew he could reach Joanna’s
window as long as he was not spotted by the guards on the walls,
and as long as his hands did not grow so numb with cold that they
refused to work.

When he
reached the arrow slit outside Samira’s room he sensed the
stillness of the two women inside, listening for the sound of his
passing. He did not waste breath or energy speaking to them. The
most difficult part of his climb lay ahead of him, and he needed to
conserve his strength, for the cold was sapping his ability to move
as easily
as he usually did. He hooked his
right arm inside the arrow slit, holding
himself securely so he could angle his upper body backward and look
toward his goal.

When it had been built seventy years
previously the castle wall was as perfectly smooth as workmen could
make it, but heat and cold, rain and ice, had all taken their toll,
and now there were rough spots on the surface. There were not
enough irregularities to allow a massive scaling of the walls by an
army, but a single determined man might climb to the top of the
western tower, or to the window about ten feet above Alain’s
present position and approximately four feet to his left. Feeling
with his left hand, he found a spot where his foot could fit, and a
handhold at the right level above it. Pulling his arm out of the
arrow slit, he began to work his way upward again.

When he reached the double windows at
Joanna’s room the shutters were securely latched. He hung by his
fingertips, with one toe slipping out of the notch in the wall
where he had placed it, and for the first time considered the
possibility that his plan might fail.

“No,” he groaned. “I won’t give up. She’s
there, just a few feet away from me.”

He could see a faint light around the edges
of the shutters, which he assumed meant she was still awake. He
could hear no sounds to indicate she had company. He decided to
chance calling out to her. He had no other choice.

“
Joanna.”
He prayed the guards on the wall would be warming their fingers
over a brazier or huddled against a distant tower for protection
against the wind.
“Joanna.
“

Now he did hear a sound from within. The
latch was being opened and one of the shutters was drawn back. He
slid his hands over the width of the windowsill, seeking a better
purchase. When he got his arms inside as far as the elbows he hung
there, catching his breath before he started to lever himself
across the sill.

“
Who are
you?” He would have known her voice anywhere,
that sweetly modulated sound, now filled
with amazement and just the faintest thrill of fear. “How did you
reach my window?”

“My love, it’s Alain. I’ll tell you in a
moment how I got here. Just let me get inside.”

“
Alain?
Is it really you?”

“
Yes.
Oomph.”
He fell through the window, tumbling across the padded seat
below it and landing most ungracefully on the floor at her feet. He
shook himself, preparing to rise, and got to his knees. “Joanna, my
love.”

“
You bloody bastard!”

He did
not see what she hit him with, but he knew it must be a pitcher of
win
e because sud
denly
the wet, sticky stuff was cascading over his head and shoulders and
he had to wipe it out of his eyes. He licked his lips, tasting
cinnamon and cloves and the honey used to sweeten the
wine.

“Joanna, what -?”

“Bastard! You left me! Left me! And after you
promised to come to my aid if I should need you,” she shouted at
him. “Liar! Liar!”

He reacted as he would have done in the midst
of battle, which was where he imagined he was, because while she
yelled at him she kept hitting him about the head and shoulders
with a heavy object. He knew he had to silence her before the guard
on the tower stairs demanded to know what was going on inside her
room.

He surged off the floor in a lightning-swift
movement, clamped one hand over her mouth and with the other hand
grabbed her by the hair. The wine pitcher fell out of her hand,
dropping to the floor with a loud thud. Before Joanna had time to
react or try to protect herself from him, Alain threw her onto the
bed. Since he had to keep his hand over her mouth he landed on top
of her, his weight knocking the air out of her lungs. She lay
beneath him, the brilliant blue eyes he remembered so well blazing
at him with a raging anger.

“I have to talk to you,” he whispered
fiercely. “Will you be quiet if I take my hand away?”

For
answer she bit him hard, sinking her teeth into the side of his
hand with an expression of ferocious glee. Acting on instinct,
Alain tore his hand away and raised it, ready to strike her. Joanna
opened her mouth to scre
am, and would
have, if there had been enough air in
her.

“Lady Joanna?” A rough male voice sounded
from the other side of her chamber door. “Lady Joanna, is something
wrong? I heard a noise.”

Joanna
took a breath, filling her lungs. From the look on her face Alain
knew she was going to call for help. His hand ached where she had
bitten him. He wasn’t going to sacrifice his other hand to her
teeth, and he had the distinct feeling that if he tried to kiss her
to keep her quiet, she would bite his lip. He’d leave a trail of
blood all the way down the western tower to the ground
– if she didn’t have the guards
in to slice him into pieces before he got that far.

“Lady Joanna?” the guard called again.

“He’ll kill me,” Alain said, very low.

“I’d like to watch that,” she told him
sweetly.

“You do, and you’ll never get out of this
room,” he responded. “Send him away and you’ll have at least a
slight chance at freedom.”

“
Lady
Joanna, if you do not answer me at once, I am going to get the key
from Baird.” T
he door
rattled as the guard banged on it.