Flambard soothed him. “You’ll have the money, but perhaps not this way. I still think we ought to take the Welshman’s money from him, and then talk to the man in London who lent it to him and fine him for breaking the law.”
William was not appeased. “The Welshman has no money! If he did he wouldn’t live in the mountains!”
Flambard shook his head. “I had word that a vast amount of gold changed hands in London.”
William objected. “The bidding was not high, and you said that Welshman claimed not to have the money.”
Flambard agreed. “But the auction wasn’t finished, and I much fear that the overnight interruption will give them pause to think. I saw one or two of the older men talking to their squires about moving out.”
William bellowed, “I’ll have their hides for that!”
Flambard said, “You cannot do that. The magnates will rise once more, and I doubt that we could save ourselves this time. No, it is merely that the auction price for the girl will not bring us all we need.”
William paced back and forth. “If Henry hadn’t interfered …”
“I wonder whether we have not been mistaken about Lord Rhys,” said Flambard, seemingly troubled. “Rainault missed him on his return from London, with the money — and my man swears no one passed him that he did not know.”
William was engaged in admiring his newest garments. His handsome legs were encased in brown silk stockings just arrived from Bruges. His blue sendal silk bliaut was hemmed in gold, with gold embroidery around his thick neck and at the cuffs of the long sleeves. Behind him, flung on the oak settle as though of little value, lay his crimson pelisson, also of silk, lavishly bordered with miniver.
“So?” said the king absently. “I wonder whether I should have stayed with the ermine on the scarlet, a lively contrast, you know?”
Flambard grew impatient. He had taken steps to insure that the Pope’s embassy knew little — at least firsthand — of the sale. It would be over and done with before they stirred themselves to protest. He believed he could grease certain palms in the embassy so that no word of this daring proceeding would get to His Holiness. The entire business was born of too much liquor fumes and too little sleep. A mere jest, tossed off without thinking — and the king had seized upon the idea with joy. Now it was too late to draw back, and the only way out was straight ahead, ruthlessly.
Prince Henry was already his enemy, Flambard knew. Were this king to lose his throne — one way or another — Flambard’s days of good living and power would be over. He had nothing to lose, then, by laying blame on the ambitious prince.
“So, sire,” said Flambard, feeling his way, “if the Welshman did not go to London — more than possible, I think — then who borrowed the money?”
William shot him a sharp glance. “Who?”
“It is said that the sum of money was munificent — enough to furnish an army.”
William wore an arrested look. “So? A rebellion? I think not. They wouldn’t dare.”
Flambard wisely kept silent. Let the king’s suspicions feed themselves, work on the sovereign — in the end, Flambard’s aims would be accomplished by the king himself.
“I do know, though,” said William, as though speaking to himself, “that the great magnates have found needful errands away from my court. It is partly for that reason that this amusement with the Ramsey maiden was possible. But if the money was lent in such vast amounts as you say …” He looked acutely at Flambard. “Then only one man in my realm could command such a sum.”
Flambard eyed William speculatively. Without William’s backing, he himself would be in the dungeon, or dead upon the heath. It was a matter of his own life, which he considered worthwhile, that Henry be undermined at every opportunity. Certainly Henry’s interference with the auction this day was a situation that Flambard could exploit to the utmost. He set himself to do it.
William said, “Don’t worry about Henry. I have convinced him that it is none of his affair.”
But Flambard objected. “He did not look to me like a man convinced, sire. And I fear that he is talking to various of the men, threatening them if they dare to bid.”
He gave this lie time to seep into William’s mind, until William began to believe that his brother was doubtless now fomenting a rebellion against him.
William eyed his minister carefully through narrowed lids and said, “This was your idea, and I expect you to see that it’s carried through. If you have to spend all night moving around among the men to see that they, in fact, plan to bid tomorrow, then do it. But I expect that auction to take place uninterrupted tomorrow, and I expect the price to be higher than it was today.”
He lifted one foot to admire the green leather shoes, the long pointed toe cunningly curved back over his instep. “A new style. I find it quite handsome.” Then without an alteration in his voice he ordered, “Put a sufficient guard on my greedy brother, lest he work some mischief.”
Flambard bowed subserviently, hiding his secret, satisfied smile, and hurried off to do his sovereign’s bidding.
The sun was westering, and in the keep with the small windows, already the rooms were in gloom. Prince Henry was gone. Brian had vanished, and Countess Maud did not know where he was. She thought darkly, just as well that I don’t. He has outgrown me, and I mislike what he has turned into. I think I should have sent him to Normandy, to my cousin, much as I dislike my cousin. Perhaps it is not too late yet.
But first she had a debt to pay, could she but learn the name of the man who had mounted the attack on Brian. She turned over her suspicions, as one turns old ground for sowing, and paid no heed to the dark grate, only pulling her cloak closer around her as the room grew cold.
When Hyrtha returned, she set to work to make the fire and to help Margit bring a light supper from the kitchens. Then she slipped into Gwyn’s room.
Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dark. The slit window, high on the wall, already showed stars in the night sky.
“I don’t want anything to eat,” said Gwyn.
“Lady, I bring you food … and hope.”
It took a few moments for the words to penetrate Gwyn’s absent mind. Hyrtha closed the door softly behind her and moved stealthily across the room to kneel beside Gwyn’s pallet. Keeping her voice to a whisper, she said urgently, “Listen to me, lady. I have a plan.”
“Tell me.”
“Lady, you must trust me.” Hyrtha leaned back on her heels. “I have arranged that Countess Maud will sleep well, very soon. And Margit has closed the door to her own room, lest she know more than she wishes.”
“But there is no way out of the tower!” objected Gwyn. Nonetheless, she was sitting up now, a sure sign that her interest was caught.
“Leave all to me,” said Hyrtha. “The guards gamble outside the tower door — I have barred it from the inside. Now we can forget them, for their purpose is to thwart the prince and the Welsh lord.”
Gwyn thought only an instant. Any hope, no matter how forlorn it proved to be, was better than sitting like a bird waiting for a viper.
“Yes,” whispered Gwyn intensely. “Yes, I’ll do whatever you say.”
Hyrtha whispered back, “Good!” She pressed Gwyn’s hand, saying only, “Wait here,” and vanished from the room. Gwyn began searching for her pelisson. Hyrtha hurried in and closed the door again behind her, leaving them both in the dark.
“The countess is already asleep.” Hyrtha thrust a bundle of clothing into Gwyn’s hands and said, “You must not wear your own clothes. Wear these.”
Hyrtha’s hands guided Gwyn into the new garments. The tunic was of rough cloth, the boots were unyielding and too large. The leggings scratched.
“Never mind, lady,” said Hyrtha with a faint laugh. “Better to wear a Saxon workman’s clothing than what you would wear on the morrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“The chancellor says you aren’t allowed even your shift for tomorrow’s spectacle!”
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br /> Gwyn thought that perhaps Hyrtha was leading her into a Saxon trap, taking advantage of her desperation. But what choice did she have?
Gwyn looked down at her rough clothes, the leather leggings and the rough-spun shirt, and realized that she looked so different from the elfin, elegant lady of yesterday that even her own father would not recognize her.
The main room was lit by the fire. Countess Maud snored heavily. Gwyn looked up to catch Hyrtha’s eye. Hyrtha was looking at her speculatively. Gwyn recognized the look for what it was and hastened to say, “I trust you, Hyrtha. Lead on, and I’ll follow.”
Softly closing the door behind them, the two stood for a moment on the stairs while their eyes adjusted to the thick darkness. Since the prisoners were not expected to leave their rooms, there was no reason for a torch to bum on the inner wall. Hyrtha took Gwyn’s wrist and, putting her lips close to Gwyn’s ear, said, “Now, follow me.”
They made their silent way down the stairs. Gwyn’s legs ached as she set her boot-clad feet down carefully, to keep them from scraping on the step.
Gwyn’s foot struck hard upon the floor, and she realized they had reached the bottom of the steps. Hyrtha stopped, and they listened. Outside the door — so close that without the wall between they could have touched them — the guards lounged. Gwyn could even hear the soft scraping where a leather jerkin leaned against the outer wall.
From the voices Gwyn realized there must be half a dozen guards, at least. Fearfully she turned to Hyrtha and breathed, “How will we ever get out of here?”
Hyrtha pulled her toward the back of the ground floor of the tower, where the wall bent inward, following the curve of the stairs. Hyrtha loosed her grip and — Gwyn could see faintly — dropped to-her knees and scrabbled with her fingers at the floor. “Here, lady,” Hyrtha’s voice came like a mere breath of air, “help me.”
Together, her fingers moving where Hyrtha guided them, she traced the square outlines of a building stone, part of the floor of the tower. In a few moments the stone moved beneath their hands, and suddenly there was nothing below. The stone had been rolled away!
“Go down,” whispered Hyrtha. “Hurry! I must replace the stone — go on!”
Gwyn scarcely knew what happened next, but she had an impression of sliding downward through a tunnel. There was the sound of rushing water — were they to fall into the Itchen? — and then the tunnel leveled out. She could feel the walls turning from stone to slippery clay, and they traveled for what seemed to be hours. The clay walls narrowed, and they dropped to their hands and knees for what felt like leagues.
Gwyn was grateful for the heavy leggings, which protected her knees from the packed earth beneath. There were no cobwebs, she reflected once — someone had come this way recently.
How can this be? she thought once, and Hyrtha seemed to divine her question. She stopped short. “Time to rest a moment. You are not as strong as I — and I am often weary before I get out!”
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere away from the walls. No Norman knows of the tunnel. The ancient Saxon fort had a sally port, you would call it,” explained Hyrtha. “To take the enemy in the rear. But it was Saxon workmen who built this Norman bailey, and it was only common sense to make sure the old tunnel connected somewhere.”
“And you found it!”
“I was told about it,” corrected Hyrtha. “It is worth my life to reveal even this much to a Norman.”
“Norman no longer!” retorted Gwyn with spirit. “Hadn’t we better get started again?”
She did not later know where she had been, but after a time she could see the faintest of faint light at the end of the tunnel. They were still moving On their hands and knees, and she followed Hyrtha’s solid figure until they once again breathed the clear air of the night. She did not know where she was, and Hyrtha let her sit for a moment while she looked at her surroundings. Below her, dark in the night, flowed the River Itchen. To Gwyn’s right she could see the road rising toward the great gates of the fort. To her left, along the river, she could hear the jangling of harness, and knew that the Pope’s emissaries, camped along the river bank, were wakeful this night.
Hyrtha motioned beyond the encampment at their feet. Bending close and putting her lips to Gwyn’s ear, she said, “Beyond there, in the shadows along the river, lie the Welsh. I cannot take you that far. You must make your way there.”
Suddenly feeling bereft, even while the maid was standing next to her, Gwyn said, “Can’t you come with me?”
Hyrtha shook her head. “I have another way to go, and I must say good-bye here.”
Gwyn said, “What happens to you now? You cannot go back. They will ask too many questions!”
Hyrtha shook her head and said, “No, I have finished with the Normans. My brother Godric leaves tonight to return to Rome, bearing messages to the Pope from his ambassador here. I will travel with him. Do not fear for me, for I will be safe now.” She looked steadily at Gwyn, and an unspoken current of affection passed between them, a current of trust, and more gratitude than could be spoken. Hyrtha put it into words as closely as she could, “You saved my life in the forest that day. Now I have saved yours.”
Gwyn leaned forward impulsively and kissed her. Then she began to inch her way from shadow to shadow along the hillside in the direction of the Welsh camp. She looked back once, but Hyrtha had disappeared.
It took an endless time. Gwyn concentrated totally on her footing, dreading to dislodge a stone. She had no illusions about what would happen to her if the sentries on watch along the walls of the castle were to find her and bring her back. She remembered the dungeons below the keep.
She moved through the night among the shadows of the trees that moved fitfully in a light breeze from the river.
She stopped in one darker patch and sat down on the ground, to consider what she would do when she arrived — wherever she was going.
The Welsh camp seemed as far away now as when she was still in the tower. She peered into the darkness and saw nothing. Not a light, not even a glinting harness broke the unfathomable blackness ahead of her.
Suddenly panic assailed her. She was convinced that her only safety lay in getting as far from the fort as possible before the moon rose. She sprang to her feet and looked wildly around her. There was no sign of movement anywhere. Even in the fortress that topped the hill there was no sound. The revelers must have fallen in a drunken stupor by now.
She started out again, keeping the river on her left hand. She stumbled, beset by her terrible need to get away, but kept going.
At last, far away, she could hear a jingling, as of harness. The sound was quickly stilled as though someone had swiftly quieted the pony.
She made toward the sound, hoping that the ponies were part of the Welsh pack train. She reached a point, at last, where she could see vague shapes in the near distance, moving uncertainly in the dark. She had come so far, but now she did not know what to do next.
She stood uncertainly in the shadows and pondered her next move. But suddenly beside her, as though sprung out of the ground, stood Caerleon. He was not the same genial man she had known earlier in the courtyard. This man was fierce. He reached over to grasp her arm and said, “What are you doing here? Come to see what valuables we carry? I’ll send you back to where you came, with the point of my dagger as your treasure! There’ll be rubies enough in your blood!”
Gwyn’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, but she managed to stammer, “N-o!”
Caerleon, startled by her voice, stooped lower to look into her face. “By all the saints! What are you? No Saxon serf!”
He dragged her into the growing moonlight, to see her better. “I wonder the dog didn’t bark!”
She saw then for the first time the great dog Maxen at her right hand. He must have sensed her but did not raise the alarm. She was strangely pleased by the dog’s recognition.
“How did you get out? The hunt will be up for you in moments! Do they k
now you’re gone? Where did you get that outfit?”
“Clearly I got away, for here I am,” she answered simply. “As to the clothes, you wouldn’t expect me to come out dressed for court, would you?”
Caerleon hauled her roughly into the center of camp, calling to his men, “Ifan, Dewi, come and see what we have!”
The two men looked at her with something approaching awe. “How did you get out?”
Caerleon interrupted swiftly, saying, “There is no time for that. As soon as they find out she is gone, this will be the first place they look! I say we pack up and move out now and be as far as we can before dawn. Ifan, do you rouse the men! You, Dewi, hitch up the ponies and see that we break camp. Quickly now, and silently!”
Suddenly the camp was a mass of activity, all of it passing as though in a dream, for there was almost no sound. It was not the first time these Welsh soldiers had broken camp, moved out on feet as silent as if they had no substance at all. She said to Caerleon, “What about Lord Rhys?”
Caerleon answered absently, “There is no way to send word. Don’t worry about it. Our first job is to get you safe.”
She could not argue, for she began to feel at the back of her neck as though all the sentries at Winchester were gazing at her.
Appearing out of nowhere, Ifan said, “Here is your pony, lady.”
They had put a couple of blankets over the back of a small but sturdy Welsh pony and helped her to mount. She blessed the practical leather leggings.
Without fanfare, almost without sound, they were on their way. The leader struck out, crossing the road, and moving into the ancient trackway to the north. The well-worn path lay along the side of a hill, so that the moving figures of horse and rider would not be silhouetted against the sky as the moon rose. Many generations of men moving across the face of England had found that it was best not to walk on the ridges, in plain view.
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