The Annals of Wynnewood Complete Series

by Chautona Havig

  When the next noise came, Dove wanted to halt. She knew she’d heard something, but her mind convinced her it was just the shuffling sound that Philip kept making echoing through the chamber. She took a step. Nothing. She took another one. Again, silence reigned. Just as she was certain she’d imagined the strange noise, a hand clamped over her mouth, and a voice whispered roughly in her ear, “Do not make a sound, little one.”

  Chapter 21

  Shadows & Secrets

  Fear sent Dove’s heart racing faster than Lord Morgan’s finest horses on festival days. She couldn’t cry out to warn Philip, and the hand held her jaw in place making it impossible to bite it despite her best attempts to seize a chunk for the hungry rats. Again, the voice came. “Stop struggling, Dove. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The voice was familiar now. Another body came close and whispered something unintelligible to the voice. “No,” was the only—nearly silent—reply.

  She heard Philip approaching. Her eyes grew wide, and she struggled again, but the voice spoke; this time she recognized it. “I have to let you go, to stop Philip. Don’t make a sound. Our lives may depend on it.”

  She nodded quickly and went limp. Lord Morgan hesitated and then released her. Dove stepped back against the wall and waited for Philip to appear in the doorway. The moment Lord Morgan clapped his hand over Philip’s mouth, Dove leapt from the wall and whispered into his ear, “It’s Lord Morgan, Philip. Don’t struggle, and don’t make any noise!”

  The next fifteen minutes were the most confusing, frustrating, and inefficient attempt at communication in the history of mankind. Lord Morgan whispered something to Dove, who answered back before he then turned to Philip to speak again. He’d listen, pass the words back to Dove, or Philip would speak directly to her. Though generating little noise, the discussion did develop much appreciation for the openness of a pleasant conversation on a sunny afternoon in the arbor or near the fire in the great hall of the castle.

  With much difficulty, the would-be bandits told of their great plan and begged Lord Morgan for permission to continue. The long hesitation nearly drove each of them wild until they heard a quiet, “Yes.”

  Philip’s excitement was short-lived. As he listened to Lord Morgan’s slight modification to their brilliant plan, his heart sank. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted to ask why Dove couldn’t try, but already knew the answer in his heart. She wouldn’t be safe in the hands of an enemy, and that’s precisely where he was headed. Within ten minutes, he’d be the prisoner of the people he wanted to thwart. It almost seemed cruel.

  With a heavy, disappointed heart, Philip squared his shoulders, nodded to Lord Morgan despite the lord’s inability to see it, and crept from the small pocket of a room he’d been jerked into just a short while earlier. He thought he heard Dove follow behind him, but knew it was likely his imagination. He’d been unable to hear her since they’d entered the tunnel. The floor grew steep, and his feet were slowly getting colder and colder the longer he walked along the stone floor, the rags hardly protecting him from the chill.

  He eventually reached the door. Grabbing the rag of tallow, he rubbed it liberally over the hinges and, as much as possible, the latch. He sensed Dove at his elbow when he finished. Everything hinged, no pun intended, on his ability to get inside the door and halfway up the first set of stairs. Down the corridor, in the opposite direction from the stairs, a large tapestry hung from hooks high in the wall. If Dove could reach that tapestry without being seen, she might reach Aurelia’s room undetected. This first stage would determine the ultimate success of their strategy.

  Taking a deep breath, Philip squeezed Dove’s arm, and lifted the latch to the door, thankful that he did not need to use the key given to him by Lord Morgan. A key would surely make too much noise. Lifting up on the door as much as he could manage, Philip managed to open it wide enough for him to peer through. A guard slept at the base of the stairs in a semi-sitting position. He’d either have to hug the wall, or step over the man’s legs. How Philip wished for the wider staircases of the front of the castle!

  The other end of the corridor appeared to be empty. Flames flickered in lanterns in wall sconces, but only the shadows of the flames moved. If there was a guard down there, he was either sleeping, or inhumanly still— or dead.

  Turning his head, he nodded once at Dove, and then hurried from the tunnel, flattening himself on the opposite wall of the corridor. The guard would have to turn his head around to see Philip as he crept toward the staircase. It was a risky move. He’d have to walk directly in front of the man’s hands to hug that wall, but it must be done. Whatever else he did, he must make it halfway up that staircase.

  Once he was within five feet of the bottom step, Philip knew it was time to make his move. His mind waffled between tiptoeing to the other side of the staircase and making a run for it. The goal was to get halfway up, and he’d have a better chance at a bit of a run. He took a deep breath, said a quick prayer for success, glanced at the crack in the door, and with the briefest of nods, practically leapt onto the second step scrambling up three more before he was fully upright. As expected, his hand hit the cold stone sending a welcome and satisfactory ‘slap’ echoing through the little antechamber to the stairs. He needed to wake the guard. This would do it.

  The guard sat up straight, his eyes bugging, trying to look as alert as he should have been. The sight of Philip scrambling up the stairs two at a time nearly toppled him to the floor. He jumped up, shouted for ‘Edric’, and stumbled up the stairs behind Philip. At the top of the stairs, the boy allowed himself one glance back at the guard, and surreptitiously at Dove, who slipped behind the tapestry the moment his eyes met hers.

  Rough hands grabbed him from behind. Philip turned and tried not to tremble at the sight of a pair of angry eyes. “This must be Edric,” he thought absently. “Why did I think he’d come from down that corridor?”

  As they dragged him down the upper hallway, Philip’s last thought was, “At least Dove got through, and I got caught. I did my job well. For what little it’s worth.”

  Dove watched sympathetically as Philip hesitated just inside the antechamber. He’d have to make some noise soon to let her slip out in the opposite direction. It must gall to have a little girl given the task of doing the visibly important things while you are left with the job of protecting her by getting caught. She was grateful for his willingness and bravery. For the first time in her life, Dove knew the taste of raw fear, and she didn’t like it.

  At the sounds of the guard’s shout and Philip’s hurried flight up the stone steps, Dove glanced his way, slipped from the door, and scurried down the corridor to the huge tapestry. Just as she crept behind it, she met Philip’s eyes and nodded. Thankful for the giant brackets that held the tapestry away from the wall, she flattened herself against the stones and shuffled along behind the tapestry. Once at the other end, she listened for running steps, but none came. Philip protested loudly, his voice echoing through the corridor, giving her freedom to move quickly without fear of being heard.

  At the end of a seemingly endless corridor, a small landing connected stairs leading down to the first floor, and stairs leading up to the next. Dove watched thoughtfully as a guard carved a fox from a small piece of wood. His handiwork was beautiful. She could see the detailed snout, tail, and ears already. The precision, patience, and care the guard took in each well-placed slice of the wood told her that it’d be lifelike when he was done. She didn’t want to startle him enough that he’d drop it, but she had to get him to climb the stairs.

  From her vantage point, she could see him clearly, but was invisible to him. She couldn’t have asked for an easier place to hide, but it was time to make her move. Was he intent enough on his work for her to creep slowly around the room behind him without him seeing her? Dove shook her head impatiently. This was no time to risk everything for the sake of a piece of wood no matter how cleverly carved. Philip would be outraged that she’d considered it
.

  In her hand, she held two small stones and a pebble that she’d stepped on through the last few yards of the tunnel. Thinking they might come in handy, she’d scooped them up and held them tight in her fist. Picking the pebble from the corner of her fist without opening her hand, Dove considered how best to throw it. Let it roll along the ground? He’d surely see the direction. Could she get enough of an arc without alerting him to her movement if she threw it overhand onto the stairs leading upward?

  She stared at the pebble turning it over and over in her fingers as she pondered her options. Overhand was the best choice, definitely. With a deep breath, she started to throw, and halted. He’d see that movement. She was sure of it; if she wasn’t cautious, she’d hit the archway into the landing. Not a good idea. Better to toss under and pray she could get enough of an arc on it that way.

  The thought of prayer halted any haste she’d felt. Would Philip’s god, the one he called lord, although Lord Morgan deserved that title, consider her impertinent if she prayed for help? She was interested in this god that Philip and Broðor Clarke loved. There was no doubt about that. Bertha had said that most of England and Ireland considered him the one and only true god, but the midwife rejected that notion. Would such an almighty and powerful god, if he did exist, take offense at her plea for help and thwart them? Should she risk it?

  She shook her head, grasped the pebble between her thumb and forefinger, and aimed. She’d have to explore prayer to gods at a time when there was less at stake. Risking the anger of any god at a time like this would be foolish. Maybe, if Philip’s god was real, He would understand and not hold it against her. Her cloak brushed against the archway as she swung her arm in the shadows. The guard’s head whipped up from his task and peered toward the doorway just as the pebble hit the stairs and started tumbling down. He stood. Trembling, Dove readied the smallest stone and waited. Slowly, he sat down the carving and knife on the trestle bench and walked toward the curving staircase glancing up into the darkness.

  This was it. The time had come. Dove stepped into the archway, heaved the stone as high as she could into the darkness over the railing, and prayed that the man wouldn’t see it flying through the air. She didn’t realize she’d prayed. By this time, her heart was pounding, her mind growing dizzy with the reality of her fear, and she was unaware of her petition to a god she couldn’t have named if she tried.

  This time, the guard heard the stone falling down the steps and raced upward. Once in the darkness where Dove couldn’t see him, she wrapped her cloak around her tightly and flew down the other winding staircase praying there’d be time to stop if someone sat near the bottom. Lord Morgan hadn’t expected anyone there, but he wasn’t sure of what Lady de Clare had commanded in his absence.

  At the bottom, the hallways were deserted. She’d have to climb another staircase once she found the hidden door in the kitchen, but no one would find her once she reached that door. It was almost too easy now. Somewhere a dog barked. Another took up the cry and in minutes, several dogs around the castle yard howled and yapped about something. A voice, though muffled, drifted in through the high kitchen window. Dove thought it sounded gruff and assumed it was ordering the dogs into silence.

  Behind shelves along a short wall, Dove felt for the latch that Lord Morgan had described. It was concealed well in the wall, but eventually, she grasped a handle in the wall and pulled. Nearly silently, the shelves swung away from the wall revealing the small doorway the lord had promised she’d find. How clever! She glanced behind her, feeling somewhat as though someone was watching, and then shook herself for being silly.

  Yeeeooooowww! A cat’s screech sent her heart racing. A voice in the hallway along with the sound of someone running her way sent Dove into a panic. How did she close the thing again? Where was that handle? Just as the man entered the kitchen, she swung the shelving closed. He’d seen it. She heard him start, listened as he moved dishes and jugs around the shelf trying to see what could have made the movement.

  Had she waited to hear, Dove would have sighed in relief when the man found an angry cat limping from the wound she’d accidentally inflicted on its poor paw. As she climbed her way to Lord Morgan’s room, he unceremoniously dumped the cat out of the high window with little regard for its safety.

  Lord Morgan’s words rang through her mind as she crawled into the room from behind his bed and peeked around the corner to see if anyone slept there. Some nobles still slept in the Great Hall with the rest of their household, but Lord Morgan had learned that when he kept his daughter away from the many little illnesses that ran through the household, she stayed much stronger. Therefore, he’d built them large beds, and on cold nights wrapped hot stones in wool and placed them at the foot of their beds to keep them warm. It was a pleasant arrangement, in Dove’s opinion. She still remembered the nice soft bed they’d given her the night of Aurelia’s attempted kidnapping.

  No one was in the room. The fire was out, the large chair empty. She hurried to Lady Aurelia’s door. This was going to be a little trickier. Would Lady de Clare have someone sleeping with the little mistress, or would she have neglected Aurelia as thoroughly as they’d seen earlier?

  Deep red coals burned in the grate of Lady Aurelia’s room. The minuscule light offered by the fireplace was only slightly augmented by a sliver of moonlight peeking from behind a cloud. She glanced around her again. No one was there, unless they slept in Aurelia’s bed with her. She took a step forward and then froze as she heard her name spoken.

  “Dove? Is that you?” The whisper came from the bed as the bed clothes rustled.

  She hurried to the side of the bed before they woke someone. To her, Lady Aurelia’s whisper sounded like a loud cry in a deep ravine echoing around them until she thought she’d go mad with fear. “Your fæder sent me.”

  “My father?” Lady Aurelia instinctively peered closer to see Dove’s eyes, but the waif of Wynnewood jerked back unconsciously. “You’ve seen him?”

  “He’s in the tunnel— you know, the one they took me— you— well were supposed to take you through when they kidnapped you— well, me.”

  “I know where he is,” Lady Aurelia whispered impatiently. “I want to know how you’ve seen him!”

  “We went through the tunnel to see if we could do it. We were trying to show Peter that you could be at risk.”

  “Father knows that. It’s why he pretended to leave. I wonder if he knows they’re planning to raid the castle tonight.”

  “He does. I’m to warn you and help you hide if they come for you.”

  “Why,” Lady Aurelia asked curiously, “didn’t Philip come? I would have thought it a much better—”

  “He’s probably in the dungeon as we speak. He got captured so I could escape to find you and warn you.”

  “Why him?”

  For all her intelligence, Lady Aurelia clearly didn’t have a mind for strategy. “Well, probably because they aren’t likely to kill a strapping boy that they could make into a laborer, wherever they took him. Me, on the other hand, I’d just terrify them, and they’d kill me. He did it to protect me.”

  “That must have hurt though—”

  Before Lady Aurelia could continue, a shout rang out from the courtyard— then another; then the girls heard the call to arms. Lady Aurelia’s terrified eyes stared at Dove. “H-hide. We must hide, but where?”

  Dove backed herself against the bed and jerked Lady Aurelia’s arms over her shoulders. “Hold on tight,” she whispered and then grabbed the large coverlet covering the bed. Across the room, lay Aurelia’s books and workbasket near a comfortable chair. Dove grabbed the Latin primer on top. Through the door, into Lord Morgan’s room, behind his bed, and into the hidden passageway, she half-carried, half-dragged the sole heir to Wynnewood Castle. Dropping the heavy coverlet on the steps, she wadded it into the softest ball she could and sat Lady Aurelia on it before sitting next to her. “Here, I’ll support you; just lean against me.”

  “W
e can’t hear anything.”

  “No, but your fæder can do his job knowing you’re safe.”

  Stifling a sob that ached to be released, Aurelia choked, “How?”

  “I have your primer. I told him I’d take it if I got you, so he’d know not to worry.”

  “You’re extremely clever, Dove, and so strong! I was so surprised that you could carry me.

  “Taking something away was your fæder’s idea. He thought the scarf that we’d intended to steal, but I thought it better to choose something a raider would never take.” She shifted uncomfortably in the darkness. Whatever strength she’d had evaporated. “I don’t usually have this kind of stamina. Bertha says when people are excited or frightened, they can often do things— physical things— that they otherwise couldn’t do. She says she once saw a woman lift a slipped millstone from her husband’s foot, but I’m afraid she might not have told the absolute truth.”

  “My father says he’s seen similar things in battle. Men throwing spears much farther than anyone has ever seen, even one man who held up the corner of a bridge until the rest of the army got across before it collapsed on him.”

  “Oh, like Samson.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t remember the story, so we’ll have to have Philip tell it, but he was able to push pillars away from the roof of some place and kill his enemies that way. Of course, he died too, but he’d been a silly foolish man, so he deserved his fate. At least he died with honor.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to talk about dying,” Aurelia protested. “I want to know my father is all right, and that they’ve driven these crazy marauders out of our lives.”

  Dove wanted to sing. She knew if she could just sing to her, Aurelia would go to sleep, and the worst of the fight for Wynnewood would be over before the little girl awoke again, but she couldn’t. Her voice would carry in such a small chamber and might be heard. It was her duty to protect the daughter of Lord Morgan. Because they’d come and volunteered, he was able to focus on the battle rather than rescuing his daughter or protecting her.