Wildwing (20 page)

“I wouldn’t go back for anything less,” I say.

“Nor I,” he says, deciding, his voice all gravel. “But tomorrow, or one more day at the very most, we’ll get away. And nothing will stop us then.”

It’s twilight as we cross the familiar stream. Suddenly there’s a shout, the pounding of hooves, and a dozen men are galloping toward us. “Are you all right, my lady?” asks Edward, with obvious relief. The men form a protective phalanx around us for the ride back to Berringstoke. Someone cries out from atop the wall walk, and then the portcullis is rising and the drawbridge coming down.

We trudge across, the sound of the horses’ hooves as exhausted and heavy as my heart. We’re not even through the barbican before we’re caught up in a swirl of bodies and barking dogs, and Beatrix is clutching me and crying as if she were my mother?”We thought we’d lost you!”?and Sir Hugh strides up, his brows as low as storm clouds. But then he sees the gyr on Will’s padded wrist, and all of a sudden he’s throwing his head back and laughing in delight, so I doubt he even hears me explain how we were looking for good hawking sites when we saw the gyr soaring away;

how we decided to chase her down and bring her back safe, following the rising flocks of birds and straining our ears for the sound of her bell. Sir Hugh is as pleased and pigeon-chested as if he’d retrieved the bird himself, and Harold is grinning as Will hands him the gyr. But Eustace …

Eustace is staring only at me, his piercing eyes taking in my cloak, too warm for the weather; my heavy kirtle. His eyes widen when they reach my waist. I look down; hanging from the purse at my side are a few links of that heavy gold chain, the one that holds the costly cross. I lift my eyes. Now Eustace is staring at Will. At the horses. At me. I raise my hand unconsciously to my hair, as if it still held three crumpled blades of grass.

The Dungeon

I
pull my bed hangings open, and light is streaming in through the window. It’s later than usual.

“Beatrix?” No answer.

She’ll need to come with us to the field today. It would look too odd if Will and I went out on our own again. She didn’t seem to remember much about yesterday morning, but the whole time she was getting me ready for bed, she kept questioning me with her eyes. Does she guess? Is she angry? Is that why she’s so late?

There’s no time to wait. I’ll find her downstairs. I pull on my shift, and then a kirtle: my blue, not the heavy one, so Eustace won’t be suspicious. And I’ll have to leave the gold cross behind. Not nearly as good as yesterday, but we’ve still got a chance, and we’re going to take it.

I open the door and start down the stairs. Beatrix will fall asleep under her tree, like she always does; we’ll leave Pilgrim with her, and this time we’ll gallop like the wind. I wish there were a better way, one that didn’t involve Beatrix, but we must leave today before Eustace has a chance to think.

As soon as I step into the bailey, I can tell something is wrong. Too many people are rushing around, and every face is drawn taut. Up on the wall walk, the sentries pace back and forth, staring into the distance; there isn’t a slouched shoulder in the group. I draw in a sharp breath. Does this tension have something to do with Will and me? Did he say too much? Outside the stables, a dozen saddled horses are stamping and snorting in impatience. Will and I could leap on and gallop away—but no, the men-at-arms would race even faster in pursuit.

Father Bartholomew stands in the middle of the bailey, peering this way and that, excitement illuminating his round pink face. I hurry to his side.

“Father, pray tell, what is happening?”

“You haven’t heard then, my lady?” His hands start kneading each other as if they were deep in bread dough. I wait anxiously, but he doesn’t say any more, just gazes again at the great to-do.

I want to shout,
Of course I haven’t heard! Why else would I be asking?
But I manage to keep my voice calm. “Why are the men in their chain mail?”

He opens his mouth to reply, but is distracted again as someone hurries by: a kitchen boy holding two great geese by their necks. Lord, I hope this doesn’t have to do with yesterday!

I speak louder to get his attention. “Why are the horses saddled? Where is everyone going?”

“A spy!” he finally exclaims. “They’ve found a spy! And where there’s a spy …” His words drift off again, his head swiveling around like he’s watching a jolly pantomime show.

I sigh in relief. A spy! That’s nothing to do with Will and me. But I still need to know if it could affect our plans. I step in front of the priest so he has to look at me. “Where there’s a spy,
what?”

His eyes work to focus on my face, and then they light up with sudden understanding. “Oh, of course! So sorry, Lady Matilda! For a moment I completely forgot how sorely you were wounded.” He nods rapidly, leaning toward me in a confiding manner. “Edward and a few of the men went out this morning, and what did they see but tracks. Not horse tracks, mind you, but footprints, and starting out of thin air! Well, they thought, who would be on foot alone, so far from town? And the trail looping and twisting in the most surreptitious manner, don’t you know? Not the trail of a poacher who knows the woods, but that of a lurker, someone new to the area, trying to disguise his path. They cleverly followedthe trail, and there they found him, outfitted in a blue tunic far too splendid for a commoner.”

Father Bartholomew stops to scratch his head, and gets distracted watching a clump of men gathered at the barbican.

“Go on,” I urge.

“My lady, who travels the woods on his own, unless he’s up to no good? And making no sense about whence he hails, nor able to explain what he’s doing on Sir Hugh’s land, except for rambling on about searching for someone. They even took him into town to see if anyone could speak up for him, and not a soul knew him. Not a soul!”

He stops, as if he’d explained the whole thing, and starts drifting toward the stables. I grab his arm. “But it’s only one man. Why are they saddling so many horses?”

“One man, yes.” He nods. “One man sent to sneak around and assess the castle’s defenses, and report back to the army that may be just the other side of the next hill! Because where there’s a spy, as likely as not there’s an army nearby. But don’t you fear, my lady.”

Fear? No, I’m wondering how Will and I can get away, with everyone on such high alert, and teams of men roaming the countryside.

“No need for you to panic at all,” he continues. “Battle is what our Sir Hugh does best! Happiest when he’s hackingand slashing with that great sword of his. The men will scour the countryside. They’ll assess any immediate threat we’re facing. And by the time they’re back, we’ll have burned and stretched the truth out of that spy.”

I look at him in disbelief. “Burned and—” “Certainly! He’s down in the dungeon right now, and as soon as Sir Hugh is ready, they’ll start in on him. Believe me, by the time they’re finished, they’ll know whatever’s in his head, from battle plans to the name of his first puppy. They tell you
everything:?
“You don’t mean …”

He nods eagerly. “We may be a smallish castle, but Sir Hugh made sure to have all the finest equipment. Even his very own rack! And those work so much faster than just hanging them by their wrists, don’t you know? In fact, come along. I’ll show you.”

Before I have time to protest, he takes my arm and steers me over to the keep. But instead of going up the stairs, we stop at a door I never paid attention to before. Now a guard is standing watch.

“She wants to take a look at the prisoner,” says Father Bartholomew. The guard nods, and the heavy door swings open. Father Bartholomew grabs a torch and leads the way down a winding stair deep into the earth. With every stepit grows darker, colder, and damper; the bailey’s smells of horse and smoke give way to a salty, mineral tang. Then there’s a whiff of something else, putrid and rank. Suddenly unsteady, I reach out to the wall for support, only to touch something slimy and cold. I jerk back. But I want to know what lies at the bottom of the stairs, so I keep walking.

Another door opens, and a guard stands aside to let us in. “She wants to take a look at the prisoner,” Father Bartholomew says again.

The guard nods toward the floor. “Watch your step.”

The floor? Yes, there’s an iron grate in the floor, opening into an even deeper, colder blackness. Father Bartholomew bends down. “Oh, my knees!” he groans, thrusting the torch through the bars so I can see into the gloom. “There, my lady. You see? You’ve no need to worry. He’s already half caved in, by the looks of him. They’ll have him telling the truth with one turn of the screw. It’s easier when they’re old, like this.”

He waves the torch around until a faint beam finally reaches into the far corner of the cell. And there, blinking up at us in the sudden light—

“Mr. Greenwood!” I cry.

“Addy?” he croaks, trying to struggle to his feet in spite of the chains. And then his eyes roll up, and he collapses in a jangling heap.

Enough Truth

I
grab the grating and jerk with all my might. It shrieks like nails on a chalkboard, until the lock stops me with a sudden clank.

“Oh, dear,” mutters Father Bartholomew. “It’s too much for her. I shouldn’t have brought her down here.” He turns to the guard. “Don’t just stand there. Help me!”

The guard dashes forward, but not to open the grating. Instead, the two of them are seizing my arms and pulling me to my feet.

“To the stairs now,” says Father Bartholomew, tugging me forward. “A bit of bad air, that’s what’s come over you, my lady. Damp and nasty down here. Oh, what can I have been thinking!” We’re almost to the door. “We’ll get you some fresh air in no time.”

“No!” I cry, planting my feet and throwing off their hands. “You’ve got to get him out of there!”

They stare at me, agape. “The spy?” asks the guard in disbelief.

I need a reason, and I need it
now
.

I stand as rigid as a steel beam. “That is no spy,” I announce, pointing one imperious finger toward the fetid hole in the floor. “You have wrongly imprisoned Sir Alec of Greenwood, come from my court for the wedding. And someone is going to pay for this!”

Father Bartholomew raises his hand to his mouth, and his lips pucker into a perfect little circle, like a boy caught surrounded by a pile of empty candy wrappers.

The guard doesn’t waste any time. An immense black key appears in his hand. He shouts, and another man comes running down the stairs, sword drawn. The first guard is already kneeling at the lock. “He’s from her court,” he grunts, as he pulls up the massive grating. “Hurry! Grab that ladder!”

They hurl the ladder down and scramble into the gloom, coughing as they reach even moldier air. By the dim light of the torch, I see one of them throwing Mr. Greenwood’s limp form over his shoulder, and then he’s climbing back up, grunting under the weight. Then it’s up the winding stair, with me close on their heels, praying with every step:

Please, don’t let them have beaten him! Don’t let that rotten air have settled in his chest! Don’t let him be dead!

The sunlight hits me like a battering ram. I feel like I’ve just escaped from a season in hell.

Men come running. “Put him in the good bed, in the solar,” I cry. “Find Beatrix, she knows about healing.” I grab one of the men. “Ride into town, as fast as you can. Fetch a doctor.”

“A doctor?” he says.

Father Bartholomew pants up. “The barber, man!” he says. “To bleed him. And grab the apothecary while you’re at it. Oh, dear me.” His voice grows fainter behind me as I rush after the men lugging Mr. Greenwood. “Dear, dear me.”

Sir Hugh strides into the solar and stares down at the body in the bed. Mr. Greenwood is as pale as a corpse. I keep looking for the faint rise and fall of his chest.

“Alive anyway,” declares Sir Hugh. “Damn fool way he had of getting here. What is it with you and your people? Shipwrecks. Roaming the hills like madmen.”

Before, when he used that booming tone, I dropped into an automatic curtsey. But now I look at Mr. Greenwood lying there half dead, and all of a sudden I’m on my feet and glaring up into Sir Hugh’s face.

“He’s my man,” I proclaim. “And
you
won’t talk of him that way!”

To my amazement, he looks at me with something like admiration. “So,” he says. “The filly has some spunk to her, after all.”

He walks over to the wine, pours out a liberal dose, and downs it in a gulp. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “How was I to know? Damned man sneaks around in the woods like he’s got—”

“Sir Hugh!”

“All right, all right. But why couldn’t he come with a retinue like any normal person? Or send word that he was on his way?”

He doesn’t know the half of it! I have questions of my own. What on earth is Mr. Greenwood doing here? Was he looking for me, and why? Is it Mum, is she sick? And when did he set the lift to return? And how—I glance at the narrow window, toward the mews—how can I run away with Will when Mr. Greenwood lies here unconscious?

But I can’t say any of that to Sir Hugh, and he’s starting to shift from one foot to the other like an impatient bull. I must make sure he welcomes Mr. Greenwood, or it could be the dungeon again.

I take a deep breath and sit back on the stool so I’ll looktouchingly small as I gaze up. Shaking my head sadly, I say, “Sir Alec always travels alone, in spite of the danger. It’s a vow he took after the death of his young son.” It’s always good to toss in enough truth to give weight to your role. “He used to wander the woods on his own for days.”

As if he thought he could still find the missing boy …

Sir Hugh crosses to the narrow window and gazes out into the bailey. “All that bother, getting the men ready,” he says. “They seem to be out of practice.”

“I didn’t expect him.” And
that’s
certainly true enough. Like an electric shock, it was, seeing his face staring up at me from that hellhole. “He must have come for the wedding. We were always very close. He was …”

My voice drifts off as I think of Mr. Greenwood handing me yet another book, of our discussions over cake and tea. I think of his eyes, telling me I was somebody, in spite of the apron I wore, in spite of what others said. He believed in me. I know that now. Almost like—

“He was what?” asks Sir Hugh, turning.

My next words surprise me. “Like a father. The father I never had.”

A wave of feelings swells inside me as I hear what I’ve just said. Me, who wanted a father more than anything in the world, I had one, after all. Not by birth, but by choice. If I’mthe reason he’s lying near death … I blink, trying to hold back tears, until I realize I can’t afford to hold them back; I need to use them.

I lift my shining eyes to Sir Hugh. “My parents died when I was so very young,” I say, as a single tear trickles down my cheek. Perfect.

A strange expression comes over his face. “That’s not the worst thing that could happen.”

His words nick me like a paring knife that’s sliced too close. This man, with his noble lineage, what does
he
know of sneers and taunts, of people turning the other way when you enter a room?

“I wasn’t born to be lord of this castle,” he continues. “Why did you think I’m so late to wed? My older brother was to inherit it all. They taught him about the land and the people, how to watch the accounts.” His bluster slips for a moment; his voice is raw. “Me? When my father looked my way, his eyes passed right through me, like I was the castle ghost.”

That’s my pain he’s describing, a pain I could never wash away, no matter how many tears I cried into my pillow. My anger is turning to confusion.

“Now that they’re dead …” He pauses, gives a bitter smile. “Now that they’re dead and my brother’s dead and

I’m lord of the castle
—now
I’m someone they would have bothered to find time for.”

His face closes again so suddenly, it’s like a helmet’s visor crashing down. “But I’ve bored you.” He pours himself more wine. “Don’t worry about Sir Alec. I’ve seen enough men on the verge of death to know he’s not of their company.” He downs the drink. “Your man will live.”