by Speer, Flora
Chapter 12
On the fourth floor of the keep, Selene stood backed against the closed door of the lord’s chamber, her arms outstretched protectively, holding on to the frame at either side in fearful yet determined defiance of the two who faced her.
“You promised,” she cried, panting in wide-eyed terror. “Gwenefer, you said Deirdre would be safe. And I.”
“Tell them to open the door, Selene,” Gwenefer demanded. “They will open it for you.”
“You can’t have my baby as hostage. I did what you wanted, now go away.”
“I,” Emrys said, his dagger pointed at Selene’s throat, “would like very much to kill you. And I will if you do not order that door opened at once.”
“No,” Selene whimpered, shrinking against the door in her effort to get away from the menacing man before her. Every bolt on the strengthening iron bands that crossed the solid wood pressed hard into her back, hurting her. She thought she would be impaled upon that door, held there forever by Emrys’ knife and her own guilt.
“Now,” Emrys threatened softly, moving one step closer. “Call to them now.”
Suddenly, Selene’s resistance crumbled. She did not want to die. Not yet. Not yet.
“Arianna.” Her voice cracked with fear. “Arianna, open the door.”
“Are you alone?” Arianna called through the heavy wood. “It’s not a trick, is it?”
“Open the door,” Selene sobbed. “Please. I’m so afraid.”
The bar slid back with a grating sound that rumbled through the wood behind Selene’s ear, and the door opened a little. Gwenefer caught at Selene, turning her and pushing her toward the opening. Arianna, seeing only Selene, moved the door further to let her in. Emrys reached over Selene’s shoulder and thrust the door wide. Arianna stood firmly, weapon in hand, blocking the entrance to the room.
“Deirdre. Don’t let them take her.” Selene got no further. Emrys pushed her from behind and, overcome by terror, she fainted, leaving the Welshman open to frontal attack as she collapsed toward the floor. At once Arianna slashed at him with the dagger she held.
“Have a care, wench,” Emrys growled. As he spoke he cracked her smartly across the wrist, knocking the blade from her grasp before she realized what was happening. She had never seen anyone move so fast. “Get out of my way,” he snarled at her.
“Never.” Arianna refused to move. The entrance to this chamber was constructed so that one defender could block entry, and this Arianna was determined to do for as long as she could.
“Move or die,” Emrys said, lifting his dagger. “I want those hostages, and I will have them, but you are all going to die in a very short time, so it may as well be now for you.”
Arianna looked him straight in the eye and stayed where she was. She saw his blade coming closer and knew he would kill her, but the danger to herself seemed unimportant. She had to protect Cristin and Deirdre and hope that help would come in time to save them. She uttered a quick, silent prayer and stood her ground.
She heard a sound behind her, and her startled senses noted an object flying past her ear. There was a loud, cracking thud. Emrys crashed to the floor. Stupefied at what had happened so quickly, amazed to find herself still alive, Arianna looked down and saw a gash along one side of Emrys’s face, and one of Reynaud’s carved crutches on top of his inert body.
“I never thought,” came Reynaud’s calm voice behind her, “when my friend the carpenter made those crutches for me, that either would ever serve as a weapon. Luckily, my arms are strong from using them every day.”
She whirled around to stare at him. He was hanging on to his remaining crutch and one post of the bed where Cristin cowered with Deirdre in her arms, and he was grinning at her like a young boy.
“How did you get here?” she cried.
“It’s a secret. Will you hand me my crutch, please? Was he alone?”
“Gwenefer was with him, but she’s not here now.”
“Ah, yes, the traitor within our walls. No doubt she has gone for reinforcements. Is Selene hurt?”
“I think she has only fainted.” Arianna felt rather like fainting herself, but she held herself upright by a great effort of will and handed Reynaud his crutch.
“Cristin,” Reynaud ordered, “put the baby down and help Arianna to drag Selene into the room. Then push that murderous Welshman out and bolt the door again, and this time open it for no one.”
“Listen!” Cristin scrambled off the bed and ran for the window niche in the eastern wall.
“Get away from there, girl,” Reynaud called. “There are arrows flying. Keep those shutters fastened.”
“Don’t you hear it?” Cristin’s face was all alight. “A trumpet. It’s my father, I know it is. He’s come to rescue us.”
“That may be,” Reynaud told her, “but in the meantime, the Welsh are still within the bailey, and we need to close the chamber door. Now, stop dancing around and help Arianna.”
It was no great task to remove Emrys. He was not very large, and he had been knocked backward by the force of the blow that had felled him. They needed only to twist his legs around and roll him over in order to heave him into the corridor.
Selene was another matter. At first she was unconscious, a dead weight, and Arianna would never have believed anyone so small could be so heavy. Arianna herself was trembling and weak-kneed in reaction to her brush with death. She tugged and pulled at Selene, and Cristin tried to help her, but it was a difficult job. Just when she thought they were succeeding, Selene awoke from her faint and began to scream and cry and thrash about on the floor, her wild movements further impeding them.
“Stop kicking me,” Cristin cried, still tugging at Selene’s ankles. “We’re trying to help you.”
“Slap her hard, Arianna,” Reynaud called over Selene’s wailing. “That will silence her.”
Arianna knew he was right. It was the only thing to do, and it had better be done at once before Gwenefer returned with more men. She drew back her right arm, put all her strength behind it, and hit Selene as hard as she could. She was surprised by how good it felt. She had to restrain herself from doing it again, and at that impulse realized she was close to the same kind of collapse Selene had suffered.
Selene fell completely silent.
“Get up,” Reynaud ordered coldly. “Walk over to that chair and sit in it. And keep quiet.”
Selene obeyed him meekly, while behind her Arianna finally closed and bolted the door.
“And now, Master Reynaud?” Arianna had retrieved her dagger and stood before him holding it, pale but composed, having forced herself back from the edge of hysteria. Reynaud nodded approvingly.
“Now we wait,” he said, “and hope Cristin is right that Lord Guy has come. Sit down, my dear, before you fall, and tell me why Selene was in the corridor with that Welsh woman, and not in here with you and the children.”
“She was behind us on the stairs, and when she shouted for us to close the door, I did.”
“The mother, protecting her child.”
“Why, yes,” Arianna said, puzzled at his sarcastic tone. She saw Selene sitting quietly on the chair where Reynaud had ordered her, tears running down her cheeks. Arianna wanted to go to her and offer comfort, but her own legs would no longer hold her weight. She climbed onto the huge bed and huddled there, shaking.
‘This same protective mother,” Reynaud went on, “then told you to open the door to certain murderers.”
“I suppose they forced her. I could not see, Reynaud, I only heard her voice.”
“Reynaud, it is my father,” Cristin called from the window niche. “Look at all the torches! And how many men he has with him! They are in the inner bailey. Come see, there’s Thomas.”
“Thomas?” Selene started up from her chair. “Thomas is here? I must go to him, I must tell him what happened. I have to explain.” When she ran toward the door, Arianna jumped off the bed to pursue her, stumbling and nearly falling on still-shaky knees.
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“Stay here, Lady Selene!” Reynaud exclaimed. “It is dangerous to leave this room. The Welsh may still be within the keep. Wait until Thomas comes for you.”
Arianna put her arms around Selene, brought her back to the chair, and gave her Deirdre to hold. And then they waited for hours, their vigil punctuated by Cristin’s eager descriptions as the rising sun revealed the results of the previous night’s attack. Cristin would not be kept away from the windows. She ran from one side of the room to the other, peering through chinks in the shutters to see whatever she could.
“There are a lot of people lying on the ground. There’s blood all over,” Cristin reported with childish excitement. Selene moaned and closed her eyes and looked ill, but Cristin went on relentlessly. “Those must be the prisoners the guards are surrounding. There aren’t very many of them.
“Oh, Geoffrey is hurt, look at his arm. Why don’t they hurry and come for us, so I can go to help him? What is Benet doing with my father?” Cristin turned from the window, her face so pale the freckles across her nose stood out boldly. “My father is hurt, he’s limping and leaning on Benet. Reynaud, please let us go out now. My father needs me.”
“Stay here, child. It won’t be long, I promise.”
It was only a moment or two later that they heard Sir Kenelm’s familiar voice on the stairs, and at Reynaud’s nod Arianna threw open the door.
“Guy sent me,” Kenelm said, his quick soldier’s glance noting the condition of all the occupants of that room. “It’s safe to go to the great hall now.”
Cristin ran past him and down the steps, calling out for her father and for Geoffrey. Selene, the still peacefully sleeping Deirdre in her arms, was not far behind.
Arianna went more slowly, glad to hang back and help Reynaud down the stairs and thus miss Selene’s reunion with Thomas. Kenelm also lent his brawny strength to support the tired architect. The three of them walked into the great hall together.
The first thing Arianna saw was Thomas, with his arms around Selene and Deirdre snuggled between them. Arianna left that tender scene, and found Guy in his big wooden chair with young Benet beside him pressing a bloodstained rag to his thigh. Geoffrey sat nearby, his left sleeve soaked in blood. Cristin fluttered anxiously between the two men.
“Are there many wounded?” Arianna asked Kenelm, already going over in her mind the list of supplies she would need.
“Not many,” Kenelm answered. “We surprised them with all the gates opened, and we were armored. There wasn’t much of a fight.”
There were in fact twenty wounded men, including Guy and Geoffrey. Arianna ordered all of them brought into the hall so she could tend to them more easily. Only a few were seriously hurt. Geoffrey had only flesh wounds to his left arm and side, which would heal quickly. Guy also had a flesh wound in his right thigh, caused by a Welsh arrow. It was painful, but clean, and his chief concern over it seemed to be that his chain mail hauberk had been damaged and would have to be repaired.
“You are fortunate the links weren’t embedded in the wound,” Arianna told him, wrapping a linen bandage around his leg. “Let the blacksmith have the extra work and rejoice that you will be healed within a week or two.”
“The blacksmith is dead,” Guy said sadly. “We’ll have to find another. It won’t be easy. He was a good man.”
There were others dead, some dear friends. Captain John had fallen defending the inner gate, along with several young men Arianna knew well. Worst of all was the loss of Joan. Arianna found her facedown in the kitchen, along with two of the serving girls, and she and Cristin wept together over her before going back into the hall to mend the wounded as best they could. Cristin worked by Arianna’s side through the rest of that day, never once flinching at what was required of her.
“I’ve helped in the stables with the horses from time to time,” Cristin said. “I’ll just pretend that’s what I’m doing now. I’m not afraid of blood.”
The one who did fear blood, Selene, had gone to her bedchamber, taking Thomas with her. He reappeared an hour or so later, looking flushed and happy, but of Selene there was no further sign that day.
Some of Guy’s household knights were married, and their wives, who had sheltered in their own rooms inside the keep, now made their way to the hall to look for their husbands and to offer what help they could among the wounded.
In Selene’s absence Arianna took charge of the domestic side of the castle, so smoothly that she herself hardly realized what she was doing. She simply saw what was needful and made arrangements to supply it. She called the carpenter and ordered coffins made for the dead, spoke to the village priest and arranged for the bodies to be washed and prepared for burial. She had the kitchen cleaned and restored to its usual neat condition and put the most intelligent of the serving girls in charge of the evening meal. She sent Linnet to help Selene with Deirdre. She told the glazier to come the next day to measure the broken windowpanes for replacement, and the carpenter’s assistants to repair damaged shutters and doors as soon as possible. The inner bailey must be cleaned, and fresh sand sprinkled on the dreadful stains that had soaked the ground and the floor of the great hall and corridors. The village folk needed help in setting their disturbed lives to rights once more. And all the time, while issuing orders and seeing more and more that must be done, she tended the wounded. It was not until she at last sat down to eat something, long after nightfall of that endless day, that Arianna remembered the Welsh prisoners someone had told her about, and ordered food taken to them.
“Small need,” Kenelm said. “They won’t live long enough to starve. Guy, I wish you would let me try to get more information out of them. They are all most unwilling to talk.” Guy had that afternoon appointed Kenelm Captain of the Guard to replace Captain John, and Kenelm seemed prepared to take his new post seriously.
“There will be no torture,” Guy said. “They will all hang for what they’ve done, but I want each of them able to walk to the gibbet, so their fellow countrymen can see that what I am meting out here is justice, not brutal vengeance. I want to discourage further attacks, not make more enemies.”
“Is Gwenefer among the prisoners?” Arianna asked.
“She is,” Guy said, “and more guilty than most of the others. You already know, I think, that she was the spy who gave the rebels the information about our defenses, and she is the one who opened the postern gate. Selene told Thomas the woman befriended her and tricked her into revealing a few unimportant facts, but mostly Gwenefer employed her wits and her charms on men most effectively, to learn what she wanted to know.”
“And I chief among those men,” Geoffrey said. “Guy, I am heartily ashamed of my part in this. I’ll never trust a woman again, and I’ll give up Tynant, turn it back to you at once. I don’t deserve your confidence in me, or your trust any more.”
“By that speech you’ve proven your fitness to keep it,” Guy responded, reaching across the table to clasp Geoffrey’s hand. “You’ve learned a hard lesson, old friend, and you will be the wiser for it. Tynant remains yours.”
“Thank you.” Geoffrey was perilously close to unmanly tears. Seeking distraction from his overflowing emotions, he nodded toward the dark young man standing behind Guy’s chair. “Have you taken a new squire? He looks familiar to me.”
“This is Benet,” Guy told him. “He has well earned his position. I’ll tell you all about it later. At the moment, I badly need a few hours’ sleep.”
“When will my mother come home?” Cristin asked. “I wish she were here now.”
“I told her to remain at Kelsey until I sent word it was safe to return to Afoncaer,” Guy replied, rising from his seat, “but I know my Meredith, and I expect the messenger to meet her on the road. I’d not be at all surprised to see her ride through the gate in a day or two. Now go to your bed, my brave girl.” Guy left the great hall with one arm across Benet’s shoulders for support, and the other around his daughter.
When Arianna stood up to leave
, too, Thomas came to her.
“Reynaud told me how you faced down the Welsh leader.”
“It was Reynaud who struck the necessary blow,” Arianna said. “Did he tell you how?”
“He did.” Thomas’s blue eyes laughed down into hers. “You were very brave, and very foolish, Arianna. I am so proud of you. Meredith will be, too, when she hears of it.” He took her hand and kissed it, and reached out to brush a stray curl off her forehead. Then he bent and kissed her cheek. When he went away, to the bedchamber he shared with Selene, Arianna stood looking after him for a long time.
* * * * *
The prisoners’ cells at Afoncaer were carved out of the solid rock beneath the storerooms, at the very lowest underground level of the tower keep. Gwenefer, being the only woman among the captured Welsh, had been given the smallest cell to herself, and there she sat, or paced the few steps from one side to the other, not knowing in that windowless, airless place, whether it was day or night. Sir Kenelm, the Captain of the Guard, had come to question her, full of his new dignity. When she refused to tell him anything more than he already knew about her part in the raid, he had gone away again, leaving her surprised that he had used neither rape nor torture to make her speak. Surely torture would come later, before a painful death. Gwenefer was glad she knew nothing of her countrymen’s intentions beyond the immediate plans Emrys had laid for Afoncaer. What she did not know, she could not be made to tell.