Sleeper’s Castle

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘No!’ Dafydd exploded with rage. ‘He would not do that. His allies have won battle after battle. He has supporters all over the land.’

  Catrin stared at him. ‘Three hundred of his men have died, Tad. Is that not enough? Would peace not be an honourable end to all this?’

  ‘Peace? You really believe that the king would grant him a pardon, pat him on the head and send him home?’ Dafydd shouted. ‘The king would have him executed!’

  ‘No! King Henry is said to be an honourable man, Tad, surely. If he has promised—’

  Dafydd didn’t deem the remark worthy of an answer. He turned and stalked back into his study, banging the door behind him.

  Joan stepped forward out of the shadows. ‘Did you say three hundred men had died on each side?’ she whispered.

  ‘So I was told.’ Catrin bowed her head in despair.

  ‘There is no word from Edmund,’ Joan said quietly. ‘My father has tried to find news of him. Do you know where he is?’

  Catrin sat down on the bench and leant wearily against the wall. ‘I have heard nothing from him, Joan. If I had I would have told you,’ she sighed.

  ‘Now the weather has turned, won’t they disband the armies? Isn’t that what usually happens in winter?’ Joan asked, her voice harsh with anxiety. ‘So they can come home and be fed at the expense of their families and have their wounds tended and their terrors comforted so that they can go back and fight again in the spring.’

  Both women looked towards the window where they could see snowflakes drifting down out of the leaden sky.

  ‘That is what usually happens, yes.’

  ‘And have you not dreamed that that would happen this time?’

  ‘Joan, I don’t know. My dreams are muddled.’ Catrin dropped her head into her hands with a groan. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Catrin must have dozed off. It seemed a long time later that she heard a tapping at the window. Her eyes opened and she stared across at the shutters. Perhaps she had imagined it. The sound came again, this time louder. She dragged herself to her feet and went to the front door. Pulling up the heavy beam that barred it shut she opened it a crack and peered outside.

  ‘Catrin?’ It was a whisper in the darkness.

  ‘Edmund?’ Her heart thumped unsteadily at the sound of his voice. Surely she was imagining it? ‘Where are you?’ In the deep shadows there was no sign of him.

  ‘Here, behind the bushes. I didn’t want Joan to see me.’

  With a glance over her shoulder at the closed door to the kitchen, Catrin stepped outside onto the snow-covered grass. He was crouching behind the bushes, a sack over his shoulders.

  ‘What are you doing? When did you come back? Why don’t you come in?’ Catrin held out her hands and he seized them.

  ‘I don’t want Joan to hear. You know only too well how indiscreet my sister can be. She’ll shriek out something and rouse your father. I had to see you before I go.’

  ‘Go? Go where? I don’t understand.’

  He pulled her closer. ‘I came back to see my father.’ He was whispering in her ear now. The snow was drifting more heavily down from the heavens. ‘I only went home for a few hours. I came on a mission with messages for supporters in the mid March. Better you don’t know who or why. Now I am on my way back to the prince’s side. There will be no peace this winter, Cat.’ He was looking anxiously into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Has disowned me.’ He tightened his lips. ‘He threatened to hand me in. I may not come this way again for a long time. That is why I had to come to say goodbye.’

  Catrin’s fingers tightened over his. He pulled her closer and held her to him. ‘I am sorry it had to be like this. I want you so much.’ He was silent for a while as she clung to him. There was no argument now. She had missed him like a physical pain. She loved this man and knew that he loved her. ‘If I had been a rich man, if I thought one day I would inherit the farm, things might have been different,’ he murmured. ‘As it is, I should not be here. I have nothing to offer any woman. Your father is right. I have no place at your side.’

  ‘My father? You spoke to my father about me?’ She pushed him away and stared up into his face.

  ‘Last time I was here, with Prince Owain. Your father guessed how I feel about you. He made it clear I would never be acceptable to him as your suitor.’

  ‘And me? Did you not think to ask me?’ she cried furiously.

  ‘Sssh.’ He glanced behind her into the house. ‘How could I ask you? I have nothing. Nothing, Cat.’ He had adopted the Lord Owain’s nickname for her.

  ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ he continued. ‘It was probably madness, but I wanted you to know how I felt.’

  She had snowflakes lying on her hood. There were more catching in her eyelashes. He reached up and gently pushed the linen coif back from her hair. Then he leant forward and placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘Be safe, my Catrin. Write wonderful poetry and make me proud.’

  She gave a small inarticulate cry and clung to him. ‘I will come with you!’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can. All I need is my thick cloak—’

  ‘No. It was unfair of me to come.’ He hugged her close, his eyes closed.

  ‘Edmund—’

  He dropped a quick kiss on her lips, then he pushed her away. ‘Go back in. Shut the door. I will do all I can to keep you and your father safe.’

  ‘What do you mean, safe?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m a good archer. I will earn money. I am trusted by the prince. Who knows, perhaps I will be knighted on the field of battle and I will come back Sir Edmund, and then your father will have to stop despising me and allow us to wed.’ He tightened his arms round her.

  Behind them the kitchen door swung open and the pale lantern light spilt out across the paving slabs into the garden. ‘Catrin?’ Joan’s voice echoed towards them. ‘Catrin? Are you all right?’ Her tone grew shrill.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ Catrin whispered. ‘If she looks for me she’ll see you and make enough noise to bring my father down, you’re right.’ She caught his hand and held it tight. ‘Stay here, I’ll come back in a moment.’

  ‘No time. There are men waiting for me on the track. We’re going together. God be with you, my darling. I will return for you one day. I swear it.’ Releasing her, he faded into the shadows. She heard his footsteps crunch on the snow, then he was gone.

  ‘Catrin?’ Joan’s voice was growing panicky. She had run into the hall and was staring towards the open door.

  ‘I’m coming.’ Catrin took a deep breath and turned towards the house. She had no time even to savour the feel of his arms.

  It wasn’t until later, as she climbed to her bedchamber and began to remove her coif and her veil and let down her hair, that she allowed herself to close her eyes and dream a little of the handsome man in the garden, the man who had told her he loved her.

  She lay still, shivering, her head on the pillows, the bedcovers pulled up round her ears, lulled by the sound of the brook outside the window. Her room was ice-cold. The shutters barely kept the wind out. Her father had promised her curtains for her bed and even glass for the window, but it hadn’t happened. As so often when he suggested improvements for the house, he forgot them again almost as soon as he had mentioned them, so immersed was he in his work. And when the spring came, he too would be gone again. He would ride to the prince’s court wherever it was, take his poems and his stories and his assurances that all would be well with the campaign to make Wales a country in her own right, independent of the English king, and the prince would listen and nod and smile at the confirmation that his plans would succeed and that Dafydd ap Hywell, like his other soothsayers, was sure of victory.

  As slowly her eyelids drooped and she lay still waiting for sleep to sweep her into another world she was afraid that her father would wake and come storming upstairs to castigate her for waking him, or that Joan would arrive carrying a
mug of camomile infusion. But no one came. The house was silent. Out on the lonely hillside she heard a vixen scream.

  ‘That sounds like the woman who was staying with me for the last few days.’

  Megan Jones was standing in front of Sian in the queue at the Co-op. They had met in the grocery aisle. ‘She was a bit of an oddball. Not like my usual guests at all. Very English, red hair, like you said, cut all spiky and modern – which looked odd on an older face. But her name wasn’t Wilson.’ She began to stack her purchases on the conveyor belt. ‘She called herself Jenkins. Myra Jenkins.’ She reached for a quart of milk and heaved it onto the conveyor belt. ‘I’ve got a week without guests, thank goodness. I sometimes think I’m getting too old for this caper. We’ve had all our rooms full since the Festival.’

  ‘In what way was she unusual?’ Sian tried to sound casual. ‘Apart from the hair.’

  ‘She said she was a photographer. Well, maybe she was. She made a great show of letting me see her camera, but somehow she didn’t handle it like a professional. I can’t quite explain. It was more a hunch.’ She stacked butter and cheese behind the milk. ‘You know how you get a feeling about people? The other couples were very nice. Quiet. Normal. But she had something about her that made me feel uncomfortable. Sixth sense, you know.’ She moved up to the till and smiled at the young man as she reached for her carrier bags.

  They resumed the conversation in the car park.

  ‘She left first thing this morning. As I said, she paid in cash, but then I don’t take cards any more.’ They stopped behind Megan’s car, their laden trolleys in line abreast.

  ‘She didn’t ask about Sleeper’s Castle?’ Sian asked.

  ‘No.’ Megan was a short dumpy woman, with an open friendly face which had begun to look anxious. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sue Macarthur rented it out to a woman called Andy. Nice lady. We’ve got to know each other a bit and she told me about this problem she’s been having with her former chap’s ex. It seems the woman’s something of a psycho: she’s followed Andy up to Hay and has been threatening her. I said I would try to find out where she’s been staying, but if she’s gone, then maybe the panic is over.’

  ‘She said she was going towards Stratford,’ Megan said. ‘But I think she was lying.’

  Sian stared at her. ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Instinct. I’ve been running a B & B for thirty years. One gets these feelings about people. Like if someone isn’t going to pay. Or if they’ve come away for a dirty weekend.’ She gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Of course there’s no such thing any more, is there. No one cares who spends the weekend with who, except perhaps the poor old husband or wife who’s being cheated on.’ She sighed. ‘I’d better get back, Sian. I still have to feed Cedrych and the boys.’

  ‘If you think of anything else, will you ring me? I know it’s a long shot, but did this woman leave an address with you?’

  ‘She did.’ Megan bent to open the tailgate of her car. ‘But I’ll wager it doesn’t exist. Or if it does, it won’t be hers.’

  ‘And if it is hers, Andy knows it anyway because it is, or was, her address.’ Sian sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure how or why Andy let the woman chase her out of the house. It happened when she was still in shock after her fella died.’ She hauled her trolley round and pointed it in the direction of her own car. ‘I know none of it’s really my business, but I can’t help worrying about her after the things she told me about this woman, and I sort of feel she needs a friend.’

  Megan stood watching as Sian headed towards her car. Her two dogs had been asleep in the back and she saw them leap up, tails wagging as Sian approached. Megan sighed. It was late and she still had a lot to do before she could put her feet up this evening and watch a bit of mindless telly.

  As she reached her car Sian’s phone rang. She fumbled for it and glanced at the screen. ‘Meryn? Where are you? We’ve missed you!’

  When next she woke Andy was in a bed, wrapped in a dressing gown, her shoes and her jacket gone. Her ankle had been neatly bandaged and apart from a dull ache it had ceased to pain her. She was warm and safe.

  ‘Andy?’ A voice she knew. ‘Andy, are you awake?’ It was Sian.

  Andy forced her eyes open. She was in a small bedroom, whitewashed, pretty. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in Meryn’s cottage. He found you on the hill.’ Sian was sitting down on a chair beside the bed. ‘Gareth Vaughan brought his pony to carry you back here and he recognised you. Meryn rang me.’

  ‘Everyone knows everyone.’ She could barely get her tongue round the words. ‘Meryn found me? He was the doctor?’

  ‘He came home yesterday.’ She looked over her shoulder as the door opened. ‘She’s awake.’

  ‘How are you?’ Meryn appeared behind her. He was tall, Andy saw now, with dark hair greying at the temples. He smiled down at her. His eyes were a vivid blue.

  ‘Better.’ She smiled back. ‘How did you know I was there?’

  ‘My friend the buzzard told me.’ He smiled. ‘I saw the birds were taking quite an interest in something down there on the hillside and thought perhaps I would go and see what it was.’

  ‘They were going to eat me.’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Luckily for you they only like carrion and you were far from that.’

  She found she was smiling too. His laughter was infectious. His face sobered almost at once. ‘I can see though how scared you must have been. They are large birds. A kite can have a six-foot wingspan.’

  ‘And enormous claws.’

  ‘Talons,’ he corrected. ‘But you’re right, they are vicious-looking, as is that huge beak. Now,’ he leaned back against the wall near the bed, looking down at her, his face stern. ‘Who is Rhona?’

  Andy gave an involuntary shiver. ‘Why? How do you know?’

  ‘Because out there, while we were getting you onto the back of the pony, you told us that she had tried to kill you.’

  Andy saw Sian bite her lip. She leaned forward and took Andy’s hand. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She followed me. I’d gone for a walk. It was stupid, but I didn’t see her. Then she was there. I slipped down a cliff into a little valley and I landed badly. I thought my ankle was broken. She came down after me and I thought she was going to help me, but …’ Her voice faded.

  ‘But?’ Meryn was looking at her sternly.

  ‘She kicked me. I think she intended to kick me in the face, but I ducked and she caught my shoulder.’

  ‘Oh, Andy!’ Sian squeezed her hand again.

  ‘She threw my mobile in the spring. I couldn’t find it.’ Tears trickled down Andy’s face. She closed her eyes, exhausted.

  ‘We should call the police,’ Meryn said.

  ‘No.’ Andy’s eyes flew open. ‘I don’t want the police. It would be my word against hers and they wouldn’t believe me. They would say I imagined it. Perhaps I did imagine it. Perhaps I dreamed it all.’ The room was beginning to swim round her again.

  ‘I don’t think you dreamed it,’ Sian said grimly. She was looking at the bruises spreading up Andy’s neck to her jaw. ‘I don’t think you dreamed it at all.’ She gave Meryn a quick glance.

  ‘I think we need to discuss all this when Andy is feeling a little stronger,’ Meryn said quietly.

  Sian bit her lip. ‘And perhaps we needn’t worry for now. Rhona’s gone, at least for the time being.’ Sian told them about her encounter with Megan at the supermarket.

  ‘If you hadn’t found me, it might have been days before anyone reported me missing,’ Andy murmured. ‘I remember now. I wanted to go for a walk. My car is still at home. No one would have missed me.’ She tried to sit up. ‘Except Pepper! I’ve been out all day – I didn’t even give him any breakfast.’

  Meryn smiled. ‘That cat!’ He said softly. ‘Probably the most pampered animal in Wales! I’m sure he’s more than capable of looking after himself for a few hours. Although I have to say, I’m amazed Sue didn’t
take him with her.’

  ‘To Australia?’ Sian said. ‘I don’t think Pepper would have agreed to that.’

  They both laughed. It was a quiet, friendly sound and Andy lay back and looked from one to the other, overwhelmed with unexpected happiness.

  ‘Back to the important issue,’ Meryn went on. ‘You’re safe, Andy, you’re not too badly hurt. It’s a miracle that you aren’t suffering from hypothermia, but luckily it’s not too cold a night and we caught you in time. You will have appalling bruising to your shoulder tomorrow, I’m afraid, and to your ankle, but neither is broken. I’ve poulticed your ankle with Sue’s wonderful comfrey ointment from your own garden at Sleeper’s Castle, and I’ve put some in a pot for you to take home to rub into your shoulder and neck. Sian and I have decided that she will drive you back there now so you can make your peace with the cat, then she’ll take you home with her and look after you. You and I will talk again when you’re recovered.’ He smiled, gave a little bow and left the room.

  ‘Does he know you and I came up here?’ Andy whispered as he closed the door behind him.

  ‘He must do. I left him a note, remember?’ Sian stood up. ‘I think we should try and get you into the car before you get sleepy again. He gave you a fairly hefty potion to drink which he said was part sedative and part painkiller.’

  In the event Andy fell asleep in the car. She didn’t wake until they reached Sian’s house. ‘We stopped off at Sleeper’s Castle but I didn’t have the heart to wake you,’ Sian said firmly when Andy protested. ‘I went in and checked everything was OK. I left a meal in Pepper’s bowl but he didn’t appear. I turned the lights out and locked up after me, so you needn’t worry until tomorrow. Then we can discuss our options. Police and doctor – not necessarily in that order.’