Longbow Girl (14 page)

The farmer's wife and children, one of whom had a small bow, were weeping, calling out to the tethered man, and pleading with the hunters. Who ignored them.

Mair hurried Merry back into the darkness of her cottage as the hunting party thundered by. Peering through a crack in the door, Merry saw the woman was dressed in lush green velvet, with a lavishly feathered hat, and rode a magnificent black Arab horse.

She turned to the old lady, whose face had gone pale. ‘Who
are
those men and that woman? Why are they in costume? Why are they hunting ponies on my land and who was the man who tried to stop them? What's all this talk of king and majesty? Is this some weird
movie
?'

‘
Movie
? What in the name of God is a
movie
? And that land . . .' The old lady glowered at her. ‘That's Longbowman
Owen's
land!'

‘Exactly,' replied Merry.

The old woman shook her head and carried on, her voice low and slow, as if she were conversing with an idiot. ‘As for those hunters, that's the Earl and Countess de Courcy and their men-at-arms, and as you can see, they're doing the king's
bidding, with the king himself alongside.'

‘What king? What bidding?'

‘King Henry, of course!' exclaimed the woman, losing patience. ‘That was the
king
riding by! They're following his command.
Kill all the wild ponies below fifteen hands high
. He thinks it'll improve his stock of war horses,' she added bitterly.

‘
War horses?' mouthed Merry.

‘
War horses,' snapped back the woman. ‘These Welsh ponies are deemed too small. So they're hunted down, speared, fed to those wretched hounds.'

Merry felt her world spinning. She took a step backwards, steadied herself against the door. The huge man on the horse, the square face, the small but imperious eyes . . . she
had
seen him before. In the history books . . .

Now
she understood the riddle of her book.

As the lost tale of the
Mabinogion
had prophesied, she had
followed through
.

Into sixteenth-century Wales.

Into the brutal kingdom of Henry VIII.

I
t was her world but not her world. She was five hundred years away from home. The question raging in her head, shouting for an answer, was:
How do I get home?
Her book said nothing about getting back, just
passing through . . .
But for the moment, all she could think of was her ancestor being dragged off to the dungeons.

‘What will happen to Longbowman Owen?' she asked.

‘He'll be beaten, thrown into de Courcys' dungeon on some false charge. Let's pray it is not insulting his king.'

‘What happens if he
is
found guilty? If he
is
said to have insulted his king?'

‘That's treason,' Mair said almost in a whisper. ‘And they hang traitors.'

‘You have to stop them!' cried Merry.

The old woman sat down heavily on a bench by the table. She twisted arthritic fingers together, seemingly debating with herself. ‘I will try,' she said at last. ‘I shall write to the Bishop of St David's, seek his help. He can intervene with the king, or with his henchman, Thomas Cromwell. And the de Courcys owe me. I saved the countess's life once when she cut her arm.'

Merry nodded. No antibiotics in this time. A septic cut would be a death sentence.

‘I'll seek an audience,' Mair was saying, ‘but the earl is a cruel man who hates the Owens and covets their land. He's burning up with ancient wrongs he thinks it's time to right.'

‘When his land was given to the longbowman at the Battle of Crécy,' murmured Merry.

The old woman's eyes flared in surprise. ‘How did you know that?'

Merry just shook her head.

The woman gave her a probing look but continued. ‘The earl will want to seize his chance. He may petition the king to have Longbowman Owen dragged off to the Tower of London. ‘

Merry felt a coldness seep through her. She walked to the window, gazed across the valley and beyond to the Beacons, to the forested slopes where the river ran, where the water pooled, where escape lay. She felt a strange fever of indecision: desperate to go, compelled to stay.

She'd swum the riddle pool, survived when many had died. She had strength and she had knowledge. If her ancestor was hanged, or died in the dungeons, a victim of the de Courcys' violent henchmen, then perhaps she would never be born . . .
Who knew if the line continued through the two children she'd seen? This was a harsh time. Many children didn't make it to adulthood. Many women didn't survive childbirth . . .

Across the valley lay the Black Castle, more stark and impenetrable than ever.

Only it wasn't.

Not if you knew a secret way in.

Merry looked out at the gathering night. Darkness would hide her but it would make finding her way back to the cave horribly difficult.

‘I have to go,' she said, making up her mind.

‘Wait,' said Mair. She moved to her pantry, took out an earthenware jar, poured a stream of thin gold liquid into a rough mug.

‘Here. Mallow juice and honey. To restore.' She gave Merry a mocking smile. ‘Not to kill.'

Merry sat down on the bench. The old woman stood watching her, warming her back by the fire. Merry eyed her over the rim of the mug.

‘I believe you. Not because I think you could not kill but because I think you're telling the truth.'

She sipped. The drink was sweet, with a slight taste of roots.

‘Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. You should be careful who you trust.'

Merry looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I am,' was all she said.

The woman turned away, bustled in her pantry, returned with a pewter plate.

‘You should eat too,' she said, offering it to Merry.

‘Thank you.' Merry felt half starving, half sick with fear, but she ate. She needed to.

The bread was dark and grainy, the cheese rich.

The old lady went into a side room and came back with Merry's head torch, sheathed knife and thigh strap. She removed the knife from the sheath.

‘Never seen anything so fine,' she said, turning the handle so the firelight glinted off lethal steel.

‘Good, isn't it?'

‘I'm wondering why a girl with your aristocratic bearing carries such a blade?'

‘I'm no aristo.'

‘
Not used to tallow candles
. Only aristocrats and the church have beeswax.
Tall and well fed
. Like a girl of noble birth.' Mair paused, put down the knife and took Merry's hand in hers. She turned it, tracing her fingers over the palm.

‘What, you a palmist?' asked Merry.

The woman laughed. ‘Don't need palms to see!'

Merry felt a punch of realization. This woman was Seren's ancestor. A healer who had the
sight
, just like all those who had gone before.

‘No, I'm looking at these calluses . . . wondering how a fine lady got them. If you weren't female, I'd say you had archer's hands.'

Merry smiled but said nothing.

‘The hands, the knife, the lost eye . . .' The old woman's gaze went faraway. Then it snapped back to Merry. ‘Are you some kind of warrior?'

Merry reached for her knife, sheathed it and strapped it to her thigh, where the short wool tunic just about covered it. She pulled on her head torch but kept it turned off.

‘Just a traveller,' she said.

Then she slipped out into the closing night.

T
he valley was drenched with moonlight. It reflected off the black granite of the castle, shimmered on the stream and silvered the dew-laced grass.

Slipping from copse to copse, keeping low, Merry moved through the night. She kept the weight on the outside of her feet, just as Professor Parks had taught her.
A useful skill, for a hunter
. She had a sense that in this time, it was a straight choice – that if you weren't a hunter, you could only be prey.

She scanned left to right in a wide arc.

There was no sign that anyone else was around. No more birds erupted from their roosts. No twigs cracked. No movement except for the trees swaying in the breeze and sheep shifting on the hillside. She guessed that nights in the sixteenth century saw everyone tucked up in cottage or castle.
Everyone save the predators, the wild animals, the thieves and vagabonds. And her.

Suddenly, just as she was emerging from one thicket and moving off into the open, she got a sense of something. Of
someone
. She reached down, unsheathed her knife.

She turned full circle, checking the darkness behind, the moonlit grass in front. She could see no one, hear nothing save the soughing of the wind through the leaves. But she could not shake this sense of another presence. She could feel it in the goosebumps on her arms and the hair rising on the back of her neck.

She turned again, saw nothing. She was probably spooking herself with all these thoughts of vagabonds and wolves.

She hurried on. To the stream, leapt it cleanly, hurried for the cover of trees. She'd always felt the Black Castle had eyes. Now more than ever the arrow slits seemed to be looking back at her.

Suddenly, two flaming torches bobbed around one side of the castle. Nightwatchmen! The earl would have had men patrolling, especially with King Henry staying. The torches moved down the hill. Towards her.

She dropped to the ground. One of the things her father had told her when they played hide-and-seek was that it's the flash of a pale face or hands or movement that gives you away. So she stayed still, face pressed into the damp earth, breath so soft her back hardly rose or fell.

She could hear the faint chatter of the men coming closer, the cadences of Welsh. They came to within a hundred yards of
her, then, very gradually, they moved away again. Merry stayed where she was, not yet daring to move. The dew had soaked her woollen shift and she began to shiver. She raised her head, scanned left to right. The torches were far away in the distance, a faint glow, growing fainter.

Merry got to her feet and hurried over the grassland towards the cover of the forest. Trees everywhere, so many more than in her time.
Better cover
, said the voice in her head. This new voice she hadn't known existed.

High above, an owl hooted. The soft whoosh of its wings passed overhead. She glanced up, saw its outline silhouetted against the moon.

Inside the forest, the darkness was intense. Only narrow shards of moonlight cut through. She had her head torch but the nightwatchmen and their flaming brands had stood out like beacons. So would even the modest beam of a torch. They'd taught her a useful lesson. She'd go in darkness. Even though it made navigating much more difficult.

She knew where the tunnel was in her time, but the forest and the darkness changed everything. She could easily miss it or spend hours going around in circles, or twist her ankle down a fox hole, or tumble on roots and break her leg. Her bare feet were already bleeding, cut by briars and sharp stones.

She paused, gave her eye time to adjust, tried to feel the forest around her, to sense the hidden hazards.

Constantly she felt the ripples of fear.
Fear is good
, said the new voice.
Fear keeps you alive
.

She moved deeper into the forest. Branches snagged her woollen shawl. One raked her cheek, drawing blood. She winced. She had one good eye. A thorn could rip it in the darkness.

Arms raised, protecting her face, she searched for the mound and the gorse bush that hid the tunnel in her time. But she couldn't find it. She began to feel a wave of panic. She feared she was going around in circles. Her arms were lacerated with cuts from the brambles.

She had to take a risk. She turned on her head torch. Its beam lit the thicket ahead. She hunted quickly, helped by the light. Then she saw it. The huge gorse bush. Even bigger than in her time. She turned off the torch, squatted down, listened to the night, waited for her eye to readjust to darkness.

She heard nothing human, just the wind and the creaking of trees.

She felt sure there was no watchman guarding the tunnels. Only the inner circle of family and retainers would have known that they existed. That was their whole purpose. Emergency and secret routes to and from the castle. Built in an age when war parties were a way of life. Waiting no more, she crawled in under the thorny branches.

The coconut smell of the yellow flowers filled the air as she pushed through into the mouth of the tunnel. She straightened, extended her arms, spread her fingers, found the tunnel wall. Using it as a guide, she made her way along the narrow passage. She didn't turn on her head torch, just in case anyone did happen to be there. Darkness was her best protection.

There was a sound, like a footstep. She froze, listened, but there was nothing. It must have been the echo of her own bare feet slapping against the stone floor. She continued on, skin bristling with fear, ears straining for a sound that never came.

After a few minutes she slowed. She had a sense of something before her, blocking her way, moments before her fingers touched wood. They probed for the door handle, closed on cold metal. She muttered a silent prayer and turned the handle.

It moved! But with a horrible groan of ungreased metal. She paused, heart racing. But there was nothing; no approaching footsteps, no shouts of enquiry. Cautiously, she turned the handle further. It moved silently now, till with a click it opened into the bowels of the castle. Into the dungeons.

Wood burnt in a brazier, casting out scant warmth and a meagre light that hardly penetrated the gloom. There was no chimney so the smoke hung heavy, stinging Merry's eyes. She wanted to cough, swallowed saliva instead. She looked around, scanning, listening. It didn't seem like anyone was there. She pulled the door shut behind her.

On tiptoe, she slunk through the vaulted jail, searching for her ancestor. All eight cells were empty.

Maybe he lay shackled in a cart rumbling towards the Tower of London. Maybe he was dead already. Apart from the loss to his wife and children, Merry couldn't begin to work out what that might mean for her
own
family. Only knew that it would be beyond bad.

She began to shake with rage and despair. Her teeth
chattered in the cold. And then she heard a sound. Rusty metal groaning. She spun around. The door to the dungeons was opening again. Somebody was coming in.