Page 6 of The Rose at Twilight

Night had fallen, and one of the men began plucking a lute.

A breeze moaned dismally up from the river, adding an odd harmony to the lute’s song, and beyond the glow of the cook fires, through the mist still surrounding the camp, Alys could see the soft silver glimmer of a waning moon above the dark shape of the castle at the top of the hill.

The eerie moonlight, though doing nothing much to illuminate the landscape, cast ghostly highlights upon the shadows of men moving beyond the firelight.

It was a good thing, Alys decided, that she was not a fanciful person.

Half an hour later, she stood, handing her empty mug to one of the men and gathering her skirts. “The day has been a long one,” she said to Sir Nicholas. “If you will excuse me—”

“Go with my blessing, mistress,” he said. “In fact, I shall escort you to see you safe within your tent.”

She gestured toward Jonet, who had got to her feet as soon as Alys had done so. “My woman will see to my needs, sir. You have no cause to disturb yourself.”

“As you say, mistress, but I will walk with you all the same. I have a mind to see that my sentries are well placed.”

A chill raced up her spine, and she realized she had been a fool not to think of sentries.

“Do you fear we shall try to run away?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light, even teasing, but certain he would hear the rasping catch in her voice.

“I have not got so much courage as that, sir, I swear to you.”

If he heard the odd note in her voice, he attributed it to simple fear, for all he said was, “’Tis not to keep you in, mi geneth, but to keep others out.

I am commanded to keep you safe, and my men as well, so I have posted guards.

I should be a fool not to do so, since we are the enemy to many in these parts.

My men will keep a good lookout, however, so you need have no fear. ”

She said nothing more, and gathering her skirts with one hand, allowed him to place her other upon his forearm to take her back to her tent.

The ground beneath their feet was not smooth, and she had no objection to letting him think her dependent upon his strong arm for her footing.

Jonet followed, and if she was surprised by her mistress’s meekness, she said nothing about it.

Inside the tent again, Alys discovered that a second pallet had been brought in and that both had been piled high with furs. She thanked Sir Nicholas for his thoughtfulness but was careful to give him no excuse to linger once he had said good night.

Alone with Jonet, she turned the lantern up and looked at her thoughtfully.

“I know that look,” Jonet said warily. “Prithee, what mischief can you be brewing up for yourself now?”

For a moment Alys toyed with the notion of lying to her, of telling her she had no thought of mischief.

She could play the indignant innocent with the best of deceivers, she knew, but she knew also that Jonet would always see through such an act, and in a twinkling.

Hearing a muffled footstep outside the tent, she held a finger to her lips, then turned toward her pallet, saying, “Just fetch me that small coffer near the prie-dieu, will you? I want to say my prayers before my eyes refuse to stay open.”

Rifling the contents of the coffer, Alys found her rosary and knelt at the prie-dieu.

Instead of praying, however, she motioned Jonet closer and murmured, “I must go and see my father, despite the Welshman’s orders.

There is mystery afoot, Jonet. You heard what Sir Nicholas said.

My brother Robert dead and my brother Paul gone to his fostering but a fortnight past.”

“Aye, and the poor lambs cold in their graves these eight years and more. What be the meaning of such, my lady?”

“I do not know, but I mean to find out. I never take sickness easily, as you know, so I have little to fear by being inside the castle walls. In faith, I have more fear of what demons may lie between this tent and the castle, but I warrant I can get inside without mishap.”

“I shall go with you.”

“That you will not,” Alys said, raising her voice in her dismay.

Lowering it again, she hissed, “I need you safe within this tent to deter any who attempt to enter. I have already made great play of my need for privacy, and though I confess I had not realized how useful that would be, I do not think anyone will disturb us. Still, if they do, I depend upon you to protect me. Tell them I visited the necessary or anything else you can think to tell them. Only do not mention the castle.”

“When will you go?” Jonet asked, capitulating much more easily than Alys had expected.

“As soon as the camp is at rest. The difficulty between now and then will be to stay awake. That ale nearly finished me, and I am nigh to sleeping here on my knees.”

“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.