My Lady Faye (25 page)

Heads disappeared behind the crenellations, Calder’s with them.

“God’s Bones.” Sir Arthur jerked on the reins to turn his destrier. “As long as he has Simon and Faye the whoreson has us bent over a barrel.”

Gregory wanted to howl his frustration. His impotence churned like ruined meat in his gut.

“We will get them.” Sir Arthur dug his heels into his horse. “Never you fear, Sir Monk. I have faced larger keeps with lesser numbers and I always prevail. Let his men chew that over as they wait for me to act.”

“Aye.” Garrett shot a quick glance at Sir Arthur. “Ask one who has lived to see the truth of that boast.”

“You carp and whine like a woman.” Sir Arthur flung at Garrett.

Garrett grinned and winked at Gregory.

Gregory stared at the stone standing between him and Faye. He had no smiles or winks to return. He clung to the image of that tiny hand waving at him. “I am coming.” The sound of his voice startled him.

William clapped him on the shoulder. “She knows.”

* * * *

Calder laughed at Sir John. The craven dog had the ballocks to question him. He would crush the man beneath his heel. “What did you say?”

Sir John faltered and drew a deep breath. “My lord, they outnumber us. If they breach the walls, they will overrun us.”

Calder curled his lip back. Cowardly whoreson, tucking his tail between his legs and trembling before mighty Sir Arthur of Anglesea at the gates. In his day, Sir Arthur might have been a great knight, but that day was long gone. Outside his gates stood a pitiful old man shouting his defiance. It made him want to laugh. The old man bellowed and puffed up his chest like he had forgotten the march of time. No man was impervious to age and Calder burned to remind him. The brothers didn’t bother him one whit. Arrogant, drunk on their father’s glory and nothing more. He could take them all at once.

“And what of the writ?” Sir John’s questions threatened his good mood.

“What writ?” Calder stared the man down.

“From the king.” Another knight stepped forward. “To ignore it is treason, my lord.”

The fools dared to challenge his authority. Calder shot his fist out. His gauntlet raked the man’s face and drew blood. Satisfaction surged as the man staggered back amongst the hens around him. “Hear you.” Calder met each man’s gaze as they clustered before him. Cowards, the lot of them. When this was done, he would see them pay for their dissension. “There is no writ from the king. The old man lies.”

“Why would he lie?” Sir John stood his ground. Good. He would go first. Strung up by his entrails from the battlements.

“Indeed.” Calder forced a smile. “Why does any man lie? To save his miserable hide. He fears us.” He beat on his chest with his fist. One or two heads came up, shoulders stiffened by pride. Still, too many appeared uncertain. “The great Sir Arthur of Anglesea knows this is a fight he cannot win and he lies out of fear.”

A ragged cheer broke out. Let that stoke a fire in their bellies. He needed them for now, useless sods that they were.

Sir John stared at him, his face blank.

What did he care? The man was as good as dead.

Full dark settled outside Faye’s casement. The fires of the waiting army twinkled on the edge of the forest, her hope and her salvation.

Sir John entered the room with a serf. Grave lines carved his angular face like a tormented saint. The serf stoked the fire, whilst Sir John placed a salver of food on the table beneath the casement and stopped to stare beyond.

The serf scuttled from the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Your father is here.”

“Aye.” Faye hadn’t expected him to speak.

“He brings a large force with him.”

“Indeed.”

Sir John’s expression remained rigid, providing no clues as to his thoughts. His tense silence pressed down on her nerves until she wanted to scream at him to go or stay or say something. “He says he has a writ from the king making you and Simon your father’s wards.”

Father had saved them. She should never have doubted he would act. “Then we are to be released.”

“Nay.” Sir John turned from the window.

“But of course we must be released.” Faye gaped at him in astonishment. The nightmare was over, her father and uncles had used their influence and the king had spoken.

“Calder will not release you.”

Faye laughed. It must be a jest.

Sir John did not laugh with her.

A creeping chill spread over Faye’s skin and she rubbed her arms. Of course Calder would not release them. He cared not what anyone said. She and Simon were his chattel to do with as he wished.

“Calder is angry.” Sir John passed a hand over his eyes. “Your father has sworn retribution, but Calder sits in the hall and drinks with his vassals.”

The chill hardened into cold, icy fear. A drunk Calder frightened her more than a sober one. He lost reason when he drank. Not that reason had ever formed a huge part of Calder’s thinking.

“He drinks heavily.” Sir John strode to the door. “He celebrates his imminent victory against Sir Arthur. All the castle serving folk are required to attend him.” He opened the door and shut it behind him.

Faye nudged Simon toward the food.

He ate with his typical boyish enthusiasm.

Faye smiled at her beloved son. Nothing stood between a growing boy and his dinner. The twinkling lights outside beckoned her, calling to her to come. A niggling sensation wormed into her brain. Something was amiss. Other than Sir John being strangely forthcoming. Faye froze. The door, it was the bloody door.

He had spoken of Calder getting drunk in the hall, of all the servants being busy and in attendance. Then he had left. The bolt. Her head reeled and she caught the wall for support. Surely, she was mistaken.

Sir John had left and shut the door. He hadn’t slid the bolt into place to lock them in. She was so accustomed to the sound, that she didn’t immediately register its absence. Her legs trembled as she crept over to the door. Hope constricted painfully in her chest making breathing difficult. Her hands shook as she put them to the latch and lifted.

The door swung open. Faye shut it again, quickly. Her heart thundered in her ears. Sir John had not bolted the door and the servants were in the hall. She stood for a moment, frozen by fear and indecision. The way was open. All she had to do was step out of that door.

Simon peered out the casement as he ate.

Faye paced into the center of the room. Beyond the door was the upper corridor. The chapel. The knowledge fisted her in the middle. Behind the altar lay the opening to a small crypt beneath. And from there—

Oh, dear Lord, her head grew light and the room spun. The crypt concealed a door that led straight to the postern gate. It would be guarded, for certain, with the army camped without.

She pushed the air out of her chest, stumbled to the edge of the bed and sat. If they were discovered, Calder would be terrible in his anger and retribution. Calder was already a monster. If he didn’t catch her escaping and kill her, he would kill her in this chamber for sure. “Simon.” Her voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else, chill and faint. “We have to go.”

* * * *

Gregory paced the confines of the tent. Behind him Roger and Sir Arthur pored over a plan of Calder Castle and strategized a way past the towering walls.

William worked his steady way through a wine skin. The man had an unnatural ability to consume wine and remain coherent.

Garrett slept on Sir Arthur’s cot.

Gregory’s skin felt pressed over his bone, too tight. Faye was at Calder’s mercy and they waited. Waited for what? For Sir Arthur to find a way over those walls with minimum loss of life. Gregory understood that, but rest evaded him. As long as Faye stayed behind those walls he wouldn’t find peace.

“Gregory.” Sir Arthur hailed him. “Come and tell us what you know of the keep.”

Relief to be doing something, anything, propelled him forward.

* * * *

Faye and Simon reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. The only way to the chapel meant crossing the entrance to the hall. For Simon, Faye tucked her fear as deep as she could. As she approached the great double doors leading to the hall her hand trembled over the wall. The doors stood open and the roar of noise from within battered against her straining ears.

A serving woman rushed out of the hall, her face harried. Betsy’s hands were filled with tankards as she hurried back to the kitchens.

Faye tugged Simon to hide him beneath her skirts and shrank closer to the wall.

The maid stopped short, startled. They were caught. Faye sagged against the wall before she fell. She tensed for Betsy’s scream.

Betsy gave Faye a tiny nod and continued on her way to the kitchen. Faye blew the air out of her lungs in a rush. They needed to move quickly. The next person leaving the hall might not be as sympathetic.

She hugged the wall as she approached the entrance. Faye inched her head around the lintel. Smoke and people blurred into a moving haze. Faye jerked her head back. The drum of her heart muted the male voices. She grabbed Simon’s hand in a tight grip.

Now.

They dashed across the clear space and stopped on the other side. Faye jammed her back against the wall, braced for the shout that would give them away. A woman shrieked followed by the crash of furniture and loud laughter.

She pulled Simon forward. The light dimmed this side of the hall. Few tapers had been lit and long shadows stretched between them. Faye hugged the shadows like a dear friend. The noise of the hall receded behind them and she quickened her pace.

No men posted throughout the keep. They must be either on the battlements or in the hall. The chapel door stood just ahead.

Faye ran the final distance and grasped the latch. Holding her breath, she inched the door open. Absolute dark greeted her on the other side. The faint scent of incense hung in the air. They slipped inside and Faye closed the door behind her. On impulse, she bolted it. Not that Calder made frequent visits to the chapel, but it might buy her precious time.

As expected, the chapel was empty. There had not been a resident priest at Calder Castle since Father Mathew had passed three years ago. Upper Mere relied on the services of the nearby monastery for spiritual guidance. Faye kept to the deeper shadows to the side of the chapel as they crept toward the altar.

No candles burned to mark the prayers of knights before battle. Behind the altar, the dark intensified and she stumbled forward, one hand clasping Simon and the other groping at the empty space.

Faye swept her hand before her. Surely she must have reached the back wall by now? Her fingertips encountered stone and she edged to the right. Fabric. A tapestry of the Blessed Virgin concealed the passage. This must be it. She brushed the cloth aside. A slight breeze chilled the perspiration on her face. The opening to the crypt. She nudged the space ahead of her with her toes. Nothing. Forward, slowly until her toe dipped over the edge of the step.

She moved blind as the tapestry dropped back into place. Painfully, carefully, she inched down the stairs. First finding the lip and then a firm place for her foot before she moved. The descent drew on forever. It seemed as if she lost most of the night creeping from one stair to the other.

Simon stumbled and she gripped his hand until he regained his balance.

The stairs spiraled down into the crypt. She didn’t think it possible, but the dark deepened as they descended. The dank, fetid air clung to her skin as they approached the crypt. She should have brought a candle.

“Mama.” Simon’s whisper bounced off the walls and echoed back at her. She squeezed his hand to silence him. “There are ghosts down here, Mama.”

The Earls of Calder lay here. Faye suppressed her shudder. They were dead. The living Earl of Calder presented a far greater threat than his resting forebears. “Nay, Simon.” Faye tightened her resolve. Something sticky brushed her face and a scream lodged in her throat. She held her breath and forced it down. There were spiders down here, too. Oh, sweet Jesus, and in all likelihood rats. She dared not increase their pace for fear of what they would stumble into in the dark. “Gregory told me a story when we were looking for you.”

“Aye.” His little voice quivered.

“Shall I tell you?”

Anything to keep the fear at bay.

* * * *

Desperation. Gregory named the sensation twisting his innards and it grew stronger with each passing hour. With Faye and Simon in the castle, they dared not risk a protracted siege.

Sir Arthur had a team of men poised to scale the walls, and archers to protect their ascent. Their forces split into three and surrounded the keep from all sides. Calder would pay for his laziness. Deep wells of shadow at the wall base gave them the advantage they sought. Calder relied on the mere to the south and wall height to protect him. He should have considered how Sir Arthur had brought down past keeps.

To the west and east, the other forces set up large encampments, not hiding their presence and drawing the castle eyes in that direction. He and the scalers wagered their lives on distraction and the dark. It wouldn’t hold for long. It didn’t need to. Only long enough for Gregory and his men to get over the wall and open the gates.

Sir Arthur’s engineers had taken a team of men into the forest to construct the trebuchets, should the first attempt fail. Everything that could be done was being done.

He’d forced himself to sleep for a few hours. A lifetime of being a knight had trained him to rest when he could. Around him the men crouched dead silent.

The moon waned above them in a clear night sky. Their ascent would begin long before dawn. The dark would provide cover, but increase the risk of falling. The scaling ladders lay concealed at the base of the highest point of the walls.

Savage satisfaction roared through Gregory. Calder’s stupidity would be Gregory’s reward.

William nudged him. “It is time.”

At last. Gregory put his shoulder to the scaling ladders. Over thirty feet in height, they would take more than one man to lift. A flaming arrow arced through the still night from Sir Arthur’s camp, the signal to halt.