Sleeper’s Castle

by Barbara Erskine

  Rhona stared at him for two or three seconds, then he was gone.

  She felt a scream rising in her throat. She recoiled, staggered back a few steps away from the door then turned and ran.

  She returned the way she had come to the head of the front steps, throwing herself down them, slipping down the last two and falling on her knees on the rough gravelled surface of the parking area. Somehow she scrabbled to her feet and managed to open her car door. She threw herself in, slammed the door after her and sat with her head resting on the steering wheel. She was shaking violently.

  Managing to get a grip on herself at last she raised her head to look out of the windscreen and up towards the house. She half expected to see the man standing looking down at her, but there was no one there. It was as it had been when she arrived: deserted and as quiet as the grave.

  She backed the car out and turned down the lane and all at once found she was laughing hysterically.

  Sleeper’s Castle looked deserted when Meryn pulled in. He turned to Andy. ‘Now, I want you to stay here until I tell you to come up, OK? No arguments. You’ve been badly hurt and you’re in no fit state to run or jump or wrestle man, woman or ghostly demon at the moment. Do I have your promise you will do as I ask?’

  Andy nodded meekly.

  ‘Good. Now lock yourself in.’

  As soon as he had disappeared out of sight round the back of the house she could feel her fear coming back. She stared up at the house, holding her breath. It was several minutes before the lights started to come on. She saw the downstairs windows light up one by one, then a few seconds later the upstairs, until every window in the house was lit. Finally the front door opened and Meryn appeared. He ran down the steps and came round to her side of the car, opening her door as she unlocked it. ‘OK. Everything seems to be all right. You’re right, you’d left the back door wide open so the place is freezing cold, but apart from that I can’t see anything amiss. There’s no one there that I can see.’ He helped her out.

  He led the way back to the kitchen and came to a halt near the door. Opening it again he paused on the doorstep. ‘I do sense there was something of a confrontation here,’ he said. ‘My guess is that Rhona came here, and was about to walk in but she stopped.’

  ‘You think she saw something?’

  ‘Why else would she change her mind? That lady is very susceptible. The atmosphere round here has been fractured. I’m sure you can feel it.’

  She could, now she came to think about it. There was an almost indefinable tension in the air, something which set her teeth on edge. It would explain something else.

  ‘Pepper hasn’t come back.’ His bowl was still sitting untouched amidst its scatter of biscuits.

  ‘Pepper wouldn’t have come back if Dafydd was still in this dimension.’ Meryn opened the doors to the pantry and scullery and peered inside. ‘No one here.’

  She followed him painfully up the stairs, glancing into one room after the other. In the spare room, which she now thought of as her studio, he paused. She watched as he glanced at her paintings and sketches. After a few moments he moved on without comment. There was blood in her bedroom and in the bathroom basin. She stood in the doorway surveying it. ‘That’s mine, I’m afraid. I was rather hoping that we would find it had all disappeared,’ she said wryly. ‘What a mess.’

  ‘Nothing that can’t be washed out.’ He walked on through into the other bedrooms. ‘No, I think all is as it should be.’

  ‘And Dafydd?’

  He thought briefly. ‘Let us adjourn to the kitchen. With the back door shut, the range will have had a chance to warm it up by now, and we can have a think.’

  They broached Sue’s emergency whisky then sat down opposite each other. Andy took a sip from her glass and sighed. ‘The doors have closed again, haven’t they?’

  He didn’t ask her what she meant. ‘I think you’re right. For the time being, and as long as you stay awake, we’re safe.’ He gave her a teasing smile.

  ‘As long as I—?’ she repeated. ‘You mean I can’t go to sleep here?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it.’ He rested his chin on his clasped hands. Eventually he looked up to find her watching him acutely. ‘You like it here, don’t you? This house, I mean. This hasn’t put you off? You would like to stay here?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Because the quickest and easiest way of sorting out the problem would be for you to move out. I think others have solved the problem that is Sleeper’s Castle by doing just that.’

  She stared at him, aghast at the idea. ‘But some have stayed.’ It sounded like a plea.

  ‘Some have stayed,’ he agreed.

  ‘You don’t think this is why Sue’s gone, do you?’ she asked after a moment. ‘The real reason?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I suspect if she’d encountered Dafydd in all his murderous fury she might have thought it a good time to leave.’

  There was a long silence. Andy was aware that he was watching her, not anxiously, not impatiently, just waiting for her to think it through.

  ‘I haven’t been here very long, but I’ve grown to love this house. I want to get to know all its secrets and its strengths and its weaknesses,’ she said slowly. ‘I want to live here in every season. I want to paint it. I’ve painted nothing but flowers for so long, it would be a liberation to paint buildings again and scenery.’ She sighed. ‘But Dafydd changes things.’ There was another long silence. ‘I am very afraid of Dafydd.’ She reached for her glass and took a small sip. ‘Something else happened today,’ she said. ‘I heard that I may get my house in Kew back. A copy of Graham’s will has been found. I might after all be a comparatively rich lady.’ She gave a grimace. ‘With a home in Surrey.’

  Meryn went on watching her without comment. He’d grown very fond of this complicated, stubborn young woman and, he realised, he felt a genuine paternal protectiveness towards her.

  ‘Strangely my reaction was not one of relief, it was one of utter disappointment. Until,’ she went on, ‘until I thought, “If I sell the house in Kew, I could buy Sleeper’s Castle.”’

  ‘If Sue wants to sell.’

  ‘If Sue wants to sell.’

  ‘But only if you can sort out Dafydd.’

  ‘I couldn’t. But you could.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘We could try together. It would rather depend on Dafydd and Catrin. And the house.’ Meryn pushed his chair back and stood up. He wandered across to the Aga and leant against it.

  ‘Then I must try and make my peace with them.’ Andy looked down at her arm ruefully. ‘If I have enough courage.’ She shivered. ‘I’m not sure I do now.’

  ‘You have masses of courage, Andy,’ he said. ‘The fact that you’re still here demonstrates that clearly. But there are obviously problems we have to tackle before you can feel comfortable here. The first thing we have to do is to see if you have done irreparable damage by allowing that door to open between Catrin and Dafydd’s world and ours. If we can deal with that then the second is to teach you how to control the dreams. You would have to learn to guide them into, shall we say, less dangerous pathways; and to wake up immediately you felt things getting out of hand. If you could do that, would you have the courage to stay, do you think?’

  ‘I hope so. If you’re there to help me.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ He studied her face closely. ‘Right. Perhaps we should start now.’

  She hesitated and he saw the flash of fear that crossed her face. ‘An easy lesson to begin with. To put you in control. Waking up.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  They both turned as the cat flap clattered and Pepper appeared. He paused inside the door and looked round, then he walked suspiciously over towards his bowl.

  ‘All clear, I think,’ Andy said quietly.

  Meryn glanced at her. ‘But you knew that. You felt it yourself.’

  ‘I think I did, yes.’

  ‘All right. First lesson. As you fall asle
ep, think about waking up the moment you want to. Think about snapping your fingers like this’ – he clicked his thumb and second finger – ‘and being awake. Immediately.’

  ‘It can’t be that easy.’

  ‘It can.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘It will.’ He looked at her sympathetically. ‘End of first lesson. You know, Andy, you look exhausted. Why don’t we leave it there for now? Go to bed and to sleep with the knowledge that you can wake up at any point if you need to. I’ll stay here if you will let me. Downstairs. If I can borrow a pillow and a rug I’ll be fine on the sofa next door, and I can keep an eye on things.’

  He was right. She was so tired she could hardly think straight. She stood up. ‘Are you sure I will be safe?’ In spite of herself, her voice quavered.

  ‘I’m sure.’ He saw her swallow nervously and he groped in his pocket. He produced a small leather bag on a thong. ‘I guessed you might be nervous and I have something here which will ward off bad dreams,’ he said. ‘Vervain, the Enchanter’s Herb. It will keep you safe and allow you to sleep soundly.’

  She took it from him. ‘Are you serious?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And it really works?’

  ‘It really works if the intention is there.’

  ‘Yours or mine?’

  ‘Both is best.’

  She gave a small, sceptical nod as she slipped the thong over her head. ‘Good night then.’

  ‘Goodnight, Andy.’

  He stooped and picked up Pepper, who purred and rubbed his face against Meryn’s cheek.

  The knock on the kitchen door was soft and hesitant. Joan looked up nervously. Any visitor these days was a matter of concern. She walked over and listened intently. There was a long silence, then another knock even softer than the first. She put her hand to the latch. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Edmund.’

  She gave a little cry of joy. Dragging open the door she looked outside. He was standing in the shelter of the wall trying to get out of the rain. ‘Edmund?’ Her greeting died on her lips. ‘What is wrong? What is it? What’s the matter?’ She caught his arm and pulled him inside.

  He drew back. ‘Are you alone?’ His voice was hoarse.

  She nodded. ‘Master Dafydd has gone away.’

  ‘And Catrin?’

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘She has gone to visit a neighbour. The old witch up on the mountain.’ Joan wrinkled her nose.

  ‘So you are alone here?’ He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God. I need your help.’ He staggered in and threw himself down on a stool beside the table. She gasped. As he walked into the pool of candlelight she saw the red and brown stains on his tunic and she smelt the stink of infected flesh. His face was a pasty white. ‘I caught an arrow in the chest. It went clean through my mail. We had a surgeon with us and he dug out the barb and dressed the wound. I thought I would mend, but it’s gone bad.’ His voice faded and he began to sway.

  She caught his shoulders. ‘Where did you come from? How did you get here? You can’t have ridden.’

  He smiled. ‘I did. I rode with two other men. They were going home too. Everyone scattered. We had to save ourselves. They were going to beg for the king’s pardon. There have been some terrible battles, Joan. Everything is going wrong. Prince Owain was in South Wales. He sent us on a foray under his brother, Tudur, to secure Grosmont Castle. We burned the town, but the king had sent reinforcements. So many men! We weren’t expecting them. We were defeated utterly.’ He paused, his strength waning. ‘We went on to besiege Usk Castle. We were certain to take that. Tudur had been told there would be no more than a hundred men against us, but again there were thousands.’ His voice broke. ‘They poured out of the walls; they slaughtered us. Those they did not kill in battle, they beheaded. Tudur was killed. Owain’s son Gruffudd has been captured and hauled away to London.’ His voice broke. He was shivering violently. ‘All is lost.’

  ‘A pardon?’ Joan narrowed her lips, seizing on the one word as he fell silent. ‘You said the men with you were seeking a pardon. Will you get a pardon too?’

  He tried to shrug his shoulders. ‘I have no money to pay the fine. You can be sure Father won’t pay it for me.’ He winced as another wave of pain swept over him. ‘Can you slap some ointment on this, Sis, please and let me sleep a bit. It would be so good to be out of the rain for a while.’

  ‘Catrin will be back later,’ Joan said.

  ‘She won’t betray me.’

  ‘No, she won’t.’ Joan pursed her lips again. ‘No more than I. We need her to dress your wound. She knows more about medicine than I do.’ She pulled his padded doublet open and looked at his wound. ‘This is bad, Ed.’

  ‘I know. Sorry.’ He was swaying on the stool.

  She grabbed his arm. ‘Come on. Come and lie down. There is a pallet in the hall. I will pull it near the fire. Then I will send Betsi to fetch Catrin.’

  He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. She pulled rugs over him and went back to the kitchen. She refilled the water pot and put it on the fire. Catrin would have to clean that wound and they would have to cut away the putrid flesh.

  She stood staring into the fire. Edmund was dying. She had seen wounds like that before. People seldom recovered from flesh that had gone bad like that.

  It was nearly dark when Betsi came back with Catrin. Joan had several candles lit on the kitchen table. ‘I thought maybe we could lay him on here,’ she said quietly. Catrin walked past her into the great hall and went to kneel beside Edmund. She pulled back the blanket and studied his wound. He didn’t open his eyes. He was sleeping restlessly, muttering feverishly as he tossed and turned. She put a cool hand on his forehead. He was burning.

  ‘Can we lift him on the table between us?’ Catrin didn’t look round. ‘He is a heavy man.’

  The three women looked down at him doubtfully. She shook her head. ‘In that case I think it is better to do it here, then he can sleep again.’ She glanced up at Joan. ‘If you and Betsi put the candles round and light the sconces, then bring in hot water and tear up some rags for bandages, I will go and see what I have in the stillroom.’

  She kept two or three small sharp knives in there, and her pots of ointment. She looked over the jars and bottles of lovingly made remedies. It had taken her a whole summer to replace her stocks after the raiders had smashed everything in here. Thank the Blessed Virgin they had not found her knives, carefully wrapped in a piece of linen at the back of the top shelf. She reached for them now and studied them. She had seen deep wounds like this before. They festered from the inside; the arrow would have taken dirt deep into his body, as would the knife of the man who had removed it, so it made sense to dip her own knife into a remedy to take it to the source of the poison. She had no need now to consult her mother’s notes on remedies. She had known them all by heart for many years.

  She wiped the blades in a tincture of calendula and pressed them into her pot of beeswax melted with honey and rye meal and powdered centaury, then she turned back to the great hall. She felt an icy calm. Lying there, Edmund was not the man she loved, he was an injured animal, like the pony who had staked herself on a sharp pole last spring. She had saved her with dressings and by stitching shut the wound. She knelt beside Edmund with her basket of tools and pots and potions. Joan was sobbing quietly. Catrin looked up. ‘Take this thread and my needles and put them in the boiling water. It softens the gut so I can stitch the wound easily when I have finished. Please, Joan, go.’ The woman’s weeping was making her nervous. ‘Betsi, I want you to hold the candle close like this so I can see. I have to get every bit of this bad flesh away.’ She picked up the largest knife and took a deep breath. ‘He won’t feel anything, he is far away now, in his dreams.’ She closed her eyes briefly and whispered a prayer to St Bride then she brought the blade of the knife towards the wound.

  He moaned and flinched and once or twice his eyes fluttered open, but she was able to make a good
job of cleaning away the rotten flesh, cutting it back to healthy pink tissue. Instinctively she let fresh blood swab the wound before she sprinkled it with the powdered centaury and covered it with a cabbage leaf, one of the blessed healers, washed of earth in the thundering waters of the brook and packed over it with clean linen dressings. She and Joan bandaged him tightly, then she pulled the blankets over him. ‘If he lives until morning I think he will be all right.’ She smiled at Joan in exhaustion. ‘Let’s clear all this mess away. Betsi, will you go and boil more water. We could all do with something hot to drink.’

  When she had gone, Catrin put her hand on Edmund’s head gently. ‘I have done my best,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, Joan, how did he have the strength to get here?’

  Joan was weeping, her face wet with tears. ‘He’s a fool,’ she said bitterly. ‘He always has been, but maybe he did the right thing in coming to you.’ She looked up at Catrin. ‘You know he loves you, don’t you.’

  Catrin nodded.

  ‘I blamed you for everything – meeting the Lord Owain, letting him be seduced away to the rebels, letting him go so far away, putting his life at risk,’ Joan said miserably.

  ‘I know you did.’ Catrin put out her hand and patted Joan’s arm. ‘I blamed myself too. But Edmund is an archer. He loves his bow and his skill. He was always going to serve someone. He wasn’t born to be a farmer like your father.’ It was no more than he had said himself a dozen times when she had begged him over the years not to go back.

  Joan scrubbed at her eyes sadly. She climbed heavily to her feet. ‘We’ll let him sleep now.’ She sniffed. ‘I am going to go and make us all a posset. Betsi has no more idea how to make that than she does how to stitch a silken tapestry, so best I go and supervise!’

  Edmund slept for hours. When he woke his fever had gone and his eyes were bright. It was several days before he could sit up and more again before he could walk a few steps across the floor.