The Rose at Twilight (5 page)

“Then sleep, mistress. I will waken you.”

Alys regarded her doubtfully. “How do I know that you will not let me sleep till dawn?”

Jonet said with dignity, “You may trust me as you have always done, Miss Alys. I have looked after you since you were a child, and I have not betrayed you yet. Moreover,” she added with a crooked smile, “I have as much wish now as you have yourself to know the answer to the riddle, and though your father will not speak to me, he may speak to you.”

A shiver raced up and down Alys’s spine at these innocent words. “I hope he may,” she said. “He spoke to me in the past only when I had misbehaved and was to be punished. Even though he now lies dying, I fear my tongue will fly to the roof of my mouth and cling there like it did then, and my lips will grow too stiff to move. He used to demand that I recite my misdeeds to him, and when I would be unable to obey, he would punish me all the more for what he called my ‘stubborn insolence.’”

“Well, ’tis certain sure he will not like it that you have entered a house of sickness,” Jonet said wisely, “but if he is as ill as the Welshman says, you have no need to fear his wrath, and mayhap he will tell you what we want to know. But sithee, child, come now and sleep whilst tha’ may.”

Alys nodded, then rapidly said her prayers and stood, letting Jonet divest her of the fur-lined surcoat and her overdress. Then, still wearing her linen smock, she crawled beneath the furs, and no sooner had her head touched the pallet than she was fast asleep.

She resisted when Jonet attempted to waken her some hours later, but her henchwoman was persistent, stifling Alys’s protests with one hand while she shook her with the other. At last Alys stirred and sat up, rubbing her eyes. The lantern had been put out, and there was scarcely any light within the tent. Nonetheless, she kept low when she climbed from the pallet and donned her overdress, fearing, however unreasonably, to cast a shadow that would be seen from outside. Not caring in the least now for fashion but only for ease of movement, she tightened her belt at her natural waist and bunched the top of her skirt up over it so that the long front hem would not trip her when she walked. Then she picked up Merion’s cloak from the floor, the icy chill in the air making it impossible to disdain its protection any longer, and stepped toward the entrance.

Jonet stopped her with a warning hand to her elbow. “Sentry,” she whispered.

Nodding, Alys turned to the rear of the tent and dropped the cloak to find an exit. Silent effort was required from both of them, but they found it possible to lift the rear wall of the tent enough to enable Alys first to make sure the way was clear and then to roll out. She refused even to contemplate the damage done to her gown by the muddy ground beneath her.

Once outside, she took the cloak when Jonet pushed it out under the canvas, and got carefully to her feet. The fires in the central clearing had died to beds of glowing embers now, and the camp appeared to be asleep. Even as the thought crossed her mind, however, a movement to her left froze her in place. She held her breath until the sentry had passed the opening between her tent and the one next to it. As nearly as she could tell, he had not so much as looked her way.

Moving as swiftly as she dared, she stepped away from the circle of tents, remembering that the horses and no doubt another sentry or two were on the opposite side. The mist had thickened overhead, and the moon no longer shone at all. Alys paused only long enough to don the cloak, which was long for her and brushed the ground; then she hurried on. The farther she moved from the camp, the darker it became. She could hear the river now, however, and knew she had only to keep it on her right as she moved uphill, away from the firelight. The dense, black bulk of the castle was barely discernible ahead, but it was enough.

She stumbled over uneven ground more than once, and stiff bracken fronds tried to attach themselves to the hem of the cloak, forcing her to lift it higher, lest the noise of her passage draw attention. She wondered how many sentries there were and if there would be guards at the castle gates. There would be, she decided. That was not a detail Sir Nicholas would have overlooked. The postern gate would be safest. It was the way she had obtained entrance to the castle in childhood days when she had slipped out unbeknownst to anyone else to explore the countryside. Not that she had never been caught then, but it was a safer way than the main gate would be, and it was possible that the Welshman would not have seen the trick of the smaller gate and would have thought it safely locked and bolted.

She had to follow the curtain wall by touch for some distance because she misjudged the exact location of the gate, which was set a few feet into the wall, but she found it at last, and saw that it was unguarded, although noises from the yard told her that there were guards inside. As she approached, she saw through the narrow slits in the iron-and-timber gate the glow of a fire some distance away, surrounded by low heaps that she soon identified by their snores as sleeping men.

Moving slowly and with great care, she drew close to the gate and put her hand upon the main bolt. There was a small knob behind, which when turned upright, allowed one to draw the bolt from the outside, unless a counterlock had been tripped within. Her father’s steward had shown her the trick of it when she was but six or seven and too small, he had thought, to make use of it. But Alys was nothing if not resourceful. She had used her knowledge many times before her departure from Wolveston.

Once the bolt was drawn, she moved even more carefully lest the gate’s hinges betray her by squeaking, but quickly realized when the gate moved in silence that they had been recently oiled. She wondered then if someone might have prepared the way for her brother, in the event that Roger successfully eluded the Tudor armies and made his way home.

It was hard to breathe now, for the worst lay ahead. She had to cross a corner of the yard, and she knew that where many slept, some would be wakeful. Moreover, there might be roaming sentries as well as those who slept or guarded the main gates.

The postern door, several feet away, was unguarded, and she slipped quickly inside. Clearly, the soldiers believed that no one would try to enter a castle of death, and blessing their confidence, she paused a moment to catch her breath, hoping now only that she would remember the way to her parents’ bedchamber well enough to find it in the dark.

She found the spiral stairs and made her way up them more by feel than by sight, passing the main floor to the next, where she could see a glow coming from a chamber at the end of the gallery overlooking the great hall below. The moment she saw the light, she was certain it came from the room she sought, and hurrying now, hoping that whoever was within would be friend, not foe, she moved swiftly to the doorway and looked inside.

A
HIGH, CURTAINED BED
stood against the right-hand wall of the room, and a fire burned brightly on the hearth opposite. At first there appeared to be no one inside other than the occupant of the bed, but then a rustling sound drew Alys’s attention to the inglenook beyond the hearth, and she saw a scrawny, elderly woman on a floor cushion, her knees hunched to her chin, dozing. Alys did not recognize her but decided she looked harmless. Alys entered the room and shut the door behind her.

The old crone opened her eyes and lifted her head but showed no sign of alarm until Alys moved toward the bed. Then she said in a high-pitched, croaking voice, “Dinna uncover ’im, m’lady. He mun be kept full covered.”

“You know me?”

“Aye, tha’ dost be ahr young Lady Alys come home again.”

“And you?”

The old woman straightened a little but made no attempt to stand up. “Goody Spurrig, m’lady, from over t’ Browson village. I be the herb wooman. Nane other’d bide wi’ the auld lord.”

“I thought there was a servant with him.”

“Gone.”

Alys had pulled back the bed curtains, and although she glanced over her shoulder at the blunt response, she said nothing before turning back to gaze for a long moment at the man who had awed her so in her childhood. All that was visible of Lord Wolveston now was his face, glistening with sweat but drawn and gray, even in the little light provided by the fire.

“Will he live?” she asked the herb woman. There was silence, so she turned.

The woman shook her head.

“May I speak with him?”

“Aye, gin tha’ canst wake him.”

Spying several wax tapers on a table near the hearth, Alys shrugged off her cloak, letting it fall to the floor, then moved to light a candle at the fire. Going back to the bed, she held the taper so it would light his face but not drip wax on him or set the curtains ablaze. “Father,” she said urgently. “Father, my lord, it is Alys. Please, sir, you must wake up.”

His eyelids flickered, then lifted, revealing dull gray eyes that shifted rapidly back and forth before focusing at last on her face.

“Father? It is Alys, my lord. I have come home.”

“Alys?” The voice was no more than a rasping croak. The frail body stirred beneath the heavy blankets. “Bless thee, child. I sent for thee, did I not?”

“Aye,” she said. Then, glancing over her shoulder once more, she said, “Leave us, dame. Tell no one that I am here. Do you swear?”

“Aye,” muttered the crone, getting stiffly to her feet. “B’ain’t nane left t’ tell.”

“Go.”

She shuffled stiffly to the door, opened it, and went out. Alys waited until the latch had clicked into place before turning back to the figure in the bed. “My lord, pray tell me what has happened here.”

“Dead, all dead.” His eyes widened, the pupils flicking wildly, first right, then left. “Soldiers … sickness … mustn’t stay. Safe, Alys is safe. Saw to that. Get the lads, get them safe … to Alys … no, to Tyrell. Alys at Drufield. Saw to that. Good, my liege. Loyalty binds—” He broke off, gasping, then repeated clearly, “Dead, all dead.”

“Father, please, look at me,” she said with a hint of impatience in her voice. “It is Alys, my lord, and I am here, not at Drufield. I am to go to London, sir. The soldiers you speak of are the Tudor’s men. I would not have been let to stay at Drufield even if I were still there and had wanted to do so.”

“Find Roger. Must find Roger.” His eyes focused on her again. “Where is Roger, wench? Send him to me at once.”

“I know not where he is, sir. I have had no word of him or of his man, Davy Hawkins. Indeed, I had hoped that you would know. We were told that Lincoln and Viscount Lovell had been killed, so Roger and Davy, too, may be dead.”

He stirred restlessly. “Not dead. Message. Keep safe.”

She had barely been able to hear his words. “You had a message, you say? What was it, sir? Who must be kept safe?”

He still looked at her, but now she thought his look was full of cunning. “Brothers, Alys. Thou hast brothers again.”

“Aye,” she retorted, glancing swiftly over her shoulder at the closed door. “So I have been told. My brother Robert died less than two days ago, they tell me, and they say that my brother Paul left the castle a fortnight past. How can that be, sir, when both Robert and Paul died of the plague eight winters ago?”

“Dead, all dead.” His eyelids fluttered and the eyes behind them drifted out of focus.

“Father,” she urged, “you cannot sleep yet, sir. What do you know of Roger? Who was the lad they called Robert? Who is Paul? Is there someone hiding here at Wolveston now?” The possibilities stirred by that last thought were frightening. “Who must be kept safe, sir?”

“Safe?” The pale eyelids opened wide again. His body moved, the body she remembered as being gigantic and fearsomely powerful, but which now was frail and helpless beneath the great pile of blankets. “Keep Alys safe,” he murmured, “at all cost.” He paused as though he were listening, his eyes narrowed, stern. Then he said quickly, “Agreed, agreed, but my daughter must be kept safe, out of it all. Send Tyrell … no, not Tyrell, he is known, too well known. I’ll not see him, your grace. ’Tisn’t safe. Safe, safe … Alys … all must be safe.”

The last words came in a singsong rhythm. She knew that he was delirious and wondered if he had said anything at all to the purpose. He was talking to someone else, not to her, and his words made no sense. “Father, who are these brothers of mine—false Robert, false Paul? Who are they? Of what must I beware? Please, you must tell me. I go to London, to the enemy. Must I go in fear? Help me, Father!”

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” muttered the figure in the bed. “Have mercy upon this miserable sinner.” His eyes were closed now, his lips barely moving with the last words.

“Father, look at me,” Alys begged desperately. She dared not touch him; she did not wish to die. Yet she wanted to shake him. She could see that the old herb woman had been right. He was dying. Time was fleeting. “Speak to me! Tell me!”

His eyelids lifted and his eyes focused again, briefly but sharply. “Go now,” he murmured much more clearly than before. “Thou must not take the sickness. But go warily, lass, lest thou drawest the Tudor wrath unto thyself.” His eyes closed.

“Father! No, that is not enough. Tell me!” But it was no use. Though he still breathed raggedly, the muscles in his face had slackened. There would be no waking him again.

Alys wondered if the old woman knew anything that might help her, but dismissed the notion when she recalled that the crone had come from a nearby village. If there were secrets here, as it seemed there must be, Goody Spurrig was not party to them.

Suddenly chilled despite the heat in the room, she moved to the fire, snuffing the candle and setting it down on the hearth, then rubbing her hands together, trying to think. Absently noting the caked, drying mud on her skirt, she drew a fold up and flicked at bits of dirt with a fingernail while she pondered, and after a time she sat down by the hearth and rubbed at the muddy patches more carefully, still trying to focus her thoughts.

If someone were in hiding at Wolveston Hazard, how safe could he or they be? There were soldiers everywhere, looking for stragglers from the Yorkist army. Ought she to search the castle? What if she found someone? What would she do? The servants were all gone, she remembered. Even the manservant who had cared for her father. The crone had said he was gone. Perhaps he had died; perhaps not. But who would feed the ones in hiding if such there were? Ought she not to look?