Sanctuary Sparrow (20 page)

He was eased, if not verily glad, when Hugh came back to relieve him of his watch.

He sat slack and discouraged in the spring grass under the hedge of bushes, and Liliwin came plucking softly but urgently at his sleeve. “Brother Cadfael, come with me!”

Come!” The whisper was excited and hopeful, where hope was in no very lavish supply.

“What is it? Come with you where?”

“He said there’s no other way out,” whispered Liliwin, tugging at the sleeve he held, “and by that token none in, but there is… there could be. Come and see!”

Cadfael went where he was led, up through the bushes on the headland, and along the slope in cover, just below the level of the stable roof and at no great distance from it, to the western end of the building. The timbers of the roof projected above the low gable, the fellow to the eastern one in which Iestyn crouched on watch. “See there—the starlight shows dappling. They let in a lattice there for air.”

Peering narrowly, Cadfael could just discern a square shape that might well be what Liliwin described, but measured barely the span of hand and forearm either way, as close as he could estimate. The interstices between the slats, which the straining eye could either discern or imagine for a moment, only to lose them again, were surely too small even to admit a fist. Nor was there any way of reaching them, short of a ladder or the light weight and claws of a cat, even though the timbers of the wall below were rough and uneven.

“That?” breathed Cadfael, aghast. “Child, a spider might get up there and get in, but scarcely a man.”

“Ah, but I’ve been down there, I know. There are toe-holds enough. And I think one of the slats is hanging loose already, and there’ll be others ready to give way. If a man could get in there, while you hold them busy at the other end… She is up there, I know it! You heard, when they ran to hold her, how far it was to run.”

It was true. Moreover, if she had any choice she would be huddled as far away from her captors as she could get.

“But, boy, even if you stripped away two or three of the boards—could you do more, unheard? I doubt it! There’s not a man among us could get through that keyhole to her. No, not if you had time to strip the whole square.”

“Yes, I can! You forget,” whispered Liliwin eagerly, I’m small and light and I’m an acrobat, bred to it from three or four years old. It’s my craft. I can reach her. Where a cat can go I can go. And she’s even smaller than I, though she may not be trained as a tumbler. If I had a rope, I could make it fast there, and take my time opening up the way for her. Oh, surely, surely it’s worth the attempt! We’ve no other way. And I can do it, and I will!”

“Wait!” said Cadfael. “Sit you here in cover, and I’ll go broach it to Hugh Beringar and get you your rope, and make ready to hold them fast in talk, as far as may be away from you. Not a word, not a movement until I come back.”

“No madder than whatever else we may do to break this dam,” said Hugh when he had listened and considered. “If you put some trust in it, I’ll go with you. Can he really creep in there, do you think? Is it possible?”

“I’ve seen him tie himself in a knot a serpent might be proud of,” said Cadfael, “and if he says there’s room enough there for him to pass, I say he’s the better judge of that than I. It’s his profession, he takes pride in it. Yes, I put my trust in him.”

“We’ll send to fetch him his rope, and a chisel, too, to pry loose the slats, but he must wait for them. We’ll make good certain they stay wakeful and watchful at this end, and try a feint or two, if need be, short of driving them to panic. And let him take his time, for I think we might be advised to wait for the first light, to give Alcher a clear view of that hatch and whatever body fills it, and a shaft fitted and aimed in case of need. If we must let a decent poor lad risk his life, at least we’ll stand ready with all the cover we can give him.”

“I had rather,” said Cadfael sadly, “there should be no killing at all.”

“So would I,” agreed Hugh grimly, “but if there must be, rather the guilty than the innocent.”

The dawn was still more than an hour and a half away when they brought the rope Liliwin needed, but already the eastern sky had changed, turned from deepest blue to paler blue-green, and a faint line of green paler still outlined the curves of the fields behind them, and the towered hill of the town.

“Rather round my waist than my neck,” whispered Liliwin hardily, as Cadfael fastened the rope about him among the bushes.

“There, I see you have the true spirit in you. God keep you, the pair of you! But can she come down the rope, even if you reach her? Girls are not such acrobats as you.”

“I can guide her. She’s so light and small, she can hold by the rope and walk backwards down the wall… Only keep them busy there at the far end.”

“But go slowly and quietly, no haste,” cautioned Cadfael, anxious as for a son going into battle. “I shall be running messenger between. And daylight will be on our side, not on theirs.”

Liliwin kicked off his shoes. He had holes in the toes of both feet of his hose, Cadfael saw. Perhaps none the worse for this enterprise, but when he came to be sent out into the world—God so willing, as surely God must-he must go better provided.

The boy slid silently down from the headland to the foot of the stable wall, felt with stretched arms above his head, found grips a heavier man would never have considered, set a toe to a first hold, and drew himself up like a squirrel on to the timbers.

Cadfael waited and watched until he had seen the rope slipped through the firmest boards of the lattice and made fast, and the first rotten slat prised free, slowly and carefully, and let fall silently at arm’s-length into the thick grass below. More than half an hour had passed by then. From time to time he caught the sound of voices in weary but alert exchanges to eastward. The criss-cross of boards at the air-vent showed perceptibly now. The removal of one board had uncovered a space big enough to let a cat in and out, but surely nothing larger or less agile. The vault of the sky lightened very gradually before there was any visible source of light.

Liliwin worked with a bight of the tethered rope fast round him, and half-naked toes braced into the timbers of the wall. He had begun patiently prising loose the second slat, when Cadfael made his way back in cover to report what he knew.

“God knows it looks impossible, but the lad knows his business, and if he is sure he can pass, as a cat knows by its whiskers, then I take his word for it. But for God’s sake keep this parley alive.”

“Take it over for me,” said Hugh, drawing back with eyes still fixed on the hatch. “Only some few moments… A fresh voice causes them to prick their ears afresh.”

Cadfael took up the vain pleas he had used before. The voice that answered him was hoarse with weariness, but still defiant.

“We shall not go from here,” said Cadfael, roused out of his own weariness by a double anxiety, “until all these troubled here, body and soul, have freedom and quiet, whether in this world or another. And who so prevents to the last, on him the judgement fall! Nevertheless, God’s mercy is infinite to those who seek it, However late, however feebly.”

“The light will not be long,” Hugh was saying at that same moment to Alcher, who was the finest marksman in the castle garrison, and had long since chosen his ground with the dawn in view, and found no reason to change it. “Be ready, the instant I shall call, to put an arrow clean into that hatch, and through whoever lurks there. But no shooting unless I do call. And pray God I am not forced to it.”

“That’s understood,” said Alcher, nursing his strung bow and fitted shaft, and never shifting his eyes from their aim, dead-centre of the dark opening, now growing clearly visible above the stable doors.

When Cadfael again made his way along the headland, the lattice was a lattice no longer, but a small square opening under the eaves, and the dislodged slats lay cushioned in the thick grass below. Liliwin had one arm stretched within, to ease aside the hay cautiously, with as little sound as possible, and make room to creep within. Now if only Rannilt could keep from starting or crying out when she found herself approached thus from behind! It was high time to make as much and as menacing ado before the stable doors as possible. Yet Cadfael could not help standing with held breath to watch, until Liliwin slid head and shoulders through the space that seemed barely passable even for his slenderness, and drew the rest of himself after in one coiling, rapid movement, vanishing in a smooth somersault, and without a sound.

Cadfael made his way back in haste to a point still out of sight from the hatch, and signalled urgently to Hugh that the time of greatest danger was come. Alcher saw the waving arm before Hugh did, and drew his bow halfway to the ear, narrowing his eyes upon the moving blurs of drab brown coat and paler face that showed as his target. Behind him the sun was just showing a rim over the horizon, and its first ray gleamed along the ridge of the roof. In a quarter of an hour it would be high enough for the light to reach the hatch, and the shot would be an easy matter.

“Iestyn,” called Hugh sharply, mustering those of his men nearest him into plain sight, though not too near to the doors, “you have had a night’s grace to consider, now show decent sense, and come forth of your own will, for you see you cannot escape us, and you are mortal like others, and must eat to live. You are not in sanctuary there, there are no forty days of respite for you.”

“There’s nothing but a halter for us,” shouted Iestyn savagely, “and well we know it. But if that’s our end, I swear to you the girl shall go before us, and her blood be on your head.”

“So you say, big talk from a small man! Your woman may not be so ready either to kill or to die. Have you asked her? Or have you the only voice in the matter? Here, master goldsmith,” called Hugh, beckoning, “come and speak to your daughter. However late in the day, she may still listen to you.”

He was bidding to sting her, to bring them both flying to the hatch to spit their joint defiance and leave their prisoner unwatched. But oh, not too fast, not too fast, prayed Cadfael, gnawing his knuckles on the headland. The boy needs a few more minutes yet…

Liliwin tunnelled stealthily through the stored hay, as much in terror of sneezing, as the odorous dust tickled his nostrils, as he was of making too audible a rustling and betraying himself all too soon. Somewhere before him, very close now, he could hear the faint stirrings Rannilt made in her nest, and prayed that they would cover whatever sound he was making. After a while, pausing to peer through the thinning screen, he caught the shape of her shrinking shoulders and head against the dim morning light. Carefully he enlarged the passage he had hollowed out, so that he might have room to draw to one side of her, and have her creep past him, to come first to the frame of the lattice. Iestyn was leaning out at the far end of the loft, shouting angry curses now at those without, threatening still but not looking this way.

There was a woman to fear, for wherever she was now, she was silent. But surely if those without were pressing, half at least of her care must be with her lover. And here in the loft it was still blessedly dark.

His hand, probing delicately ahead, found and touched Rannilt’s bare forearm. She flinched sharply, but made no sound at all, and in a moment he slid his hand down to find hers, and clung. Then she knew. All he heard was a faint, long sigh, and her fingers closed on his. He drew her gently, and by slow inches she shifted and drew nearer, into the cavity he opened for her. She was beside him, the fragile screen of hay hiding him and already half shielding her, and still no outcry. He urged her on past him with the pressure of his hand, to come first to the lattice and the rope as he covered her going. Outside the stable doors the circling voices were raised and peremptory, and Iestyn, wild with weariness and anger, roared back at them incoherent defiance. Then, blessedly, Sussana’s voice, surely close there at her lover’s shoulder, soared above the clamour:

“Fools, do you think there’s any power can separate us now? I hold as Iestyn holds, I despise your promises and your threats as he does. Bring my father to plead with me, would you? Let him hear, then, what I owe him, and what I wish him. Of all men on earth, I hate him! As he has made me of no worth, so I set no value on him. Dare he say I am no longer his daughter? He is no longer my father, he never was a father to me. May he be fed molten gold in hell until belly and throat burn to furnace ashes…”

Under the fury of that raging voice, clear and steely as a sword, Liliwin hustled Rannilt past him and thrust her bodily through his dusty tunnel towards the lattice and the rope, all caution cast to the winds, for if this momemt escaped them, there might be no other.

It was Iestyn’s quick ear that caught, even through Susanna’s malediction, the sudden frenzied rustling of hay. He swung round with a great cry of rage at what he saw, and lunged away to prevent it. The first ray of light entering caught the flash of the naked knife.

Hugh was quick to understand and act. “Shoot!” he cried, and Alcher, who had that first finger of sunlight now bright on Iestyn’s body, loosed his shaft. Meant for the breast, it would have been no less mortal in the back, if Susanna, for all her bitter passion, had not taken in all these signs in one breath. She uttered a shriek rather of rage than fear, and flung herself into the opening of the hatch, arms spread and braced to ward off her lover’s death.

At the first cry Liliwin had thrust Rannilt towards the way of escape, and sprung erect out of the hay to put his own slight body between her and harm. Iestyn bore down on him, the brandished dagger caught the levelled ray of sun and sent splinters of light dancing about the roof. The blade hung over Liliwin’s heart when Susanna’s shriek caused Iestyn to baulk and shudder where he stood, straining backwards like a horse suddenly reined in, and the point of the knife slid wildly down, slicing along the boy’s parrying forearm, and drawing a fine spray of blood into the hay.

She was melting, she was dissolving into herself, as a man of snow folds into himself gradually when the thaw comes. The impact of the arrow, striking full into her left breast, had spun her round, she sank slowly with her hands clutching the shaft where it had pierced her, and her eyes fixed, huge and clouded, upon Iestyn, for whom the death had been intended. Liliwin, dazedly watching as the man sprang back to clasp her, said afterwards that she was smiling. But his recollections were confused and wild, what he chiefly recalled was a terrible howl of grief and despair that filled and echoed through the loft. The knife was flung aside, and stuck quivering in the boards of the floor. Iestyn embraced his love, moaning, and sank with her in his arms. Round the fearful barrier of the arrow she essayed to lift her failing arms to clasp him. Their kiss was a contortion the trained contortionist in Liliwin remembered lifelong with pity and pain.