Ann of Cambray (31 page)

My question fell on deaf ears. They were intent about the drawings now, making new ones, measuring, arguing.

‘We need time to find which one,’ Raoul said, ‘some clue. We might search a week. A portal, perhaps, set in the rock face. Or supplies stored at the exit, a boat. . .’

‘I can tell you that, too,’ I said above their voices. ‘We keep, or always kept, a boat drawn up inside one of the caves. For fishing. Gwendyth and I used to go to it sometimes. We used to refill the water jugs from time to time . . .’ My voice trailed off as the impact of what I was saying dawned on me, too.

Lord Raoul leaned back upon his heels and smiled at me.

‘Why, Lady Ann,’ he teased, ‘we’ve no need of thumbscrew and rack. You’d tell all you know as freely as the wind. I could have picked any brat at Cambray and asked him. They could all tell me what I need to know.’

He sprang back into the saddle behind me, gathering reins and urging us forward. I could hear the other men talking among themselves as they followed us, one whistling as we went, another holding his reins between his teeth as he worked his sword back and forth in the scabbard. Still not sure what it meant, uncertain of hope, I suddenly let out one of Raoul’s soldier oaths.

‘What is it you are about then?’ I asked, and heard that ripple of amusement run through his men again.

Raoul raised one eyebrow in protest. But all he said was, ‘Your father was wiser than I thought. The passage by which he planned his escape, if worst came to worst, may yet allow us entrance. We go to Cambray, Lady Ann. That is what we are about.’

I had known he was going to say it, yet the words still took my breath away. I could almost smell, taste, feel, what I had so long hungered for. Then sense took over.

‘Is it safe?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps we should wait. ..’

He let forth an oath more violent than my own, digging his spurs into his horse’s side until the animal almost reared up as if fresh from the stable, and I had to catch at him to avoid being tossed off.

‘By the Mass, lady,’ he said, ‘we have been waiting enough these past months. It is not a virtue that sits easily with me. Or my men. I think it was not so long ago you chided me for it also. We have done with waiting.’

There was an answering murmur from the others.

He slid forward again to speak into my ear. ‘You see they feel the same,’ he said. ‘It would be cruelty to deprive us now. They do not like being made to look foolish, either. And I have been but an indifferent keeper of you and your estates since you first came to Sedgemont. As you have long been telling me. I owe you this much.’

‘But, Raoul,’ I protested, speaking, because he was so close, into his hair. I could feel the warm breath on my face and the touch of his cheek as he answered me.

‘But, Raoul, I have a hasty tongue, as you know. I would not goad you and your men into further danger against your will.’

He laughed softly, the sound trickling past. ‘I never thought to hear you say that much,’ he said. ‘All you have given us is the excuse to do what we wanted. Thanks to you for that.’

He pulled the cloak up closer around my shoulders, taking advantage of the movement to put his hand beneath my chin, forcing my head to face his. I could feel the cold of his hand, the calluses upon the palm from rein and hilt, the long and surprisingly slender fingers, which traced the scars and bruises on my face.

‘If for nothing else,’ he said, ‘for those. I owe you that,
ma mie.
It is already decided.’

‘So easily,’ I was about to say, for I knew my surprise showed. ‘Your men know what to do?’

He smiled again, and shook the rein to set us cantering. ‘It is not hard to decide,’ he said, ‘when hearts and minds are agreed. We know one another well by now, my men and I. I think we understand what is to be done. Doing is easier than explaining.’

Behind him, the other horses also shook themselves into renewed vigour. The saddlebags slapped against the horses’ sides. The flag bearer broke out the standard of Sedgemont, and the gold hawks floated behind us freely in the breeze.

His hands were tight around me now, warmer and steady under the cover of the cloak.

‘Guy of Maneth will not look to harm my ward again,’ he said. ‘Had Gilbert forced you to his desire, I’d have had him gelded before he died. Since he did not succeed . . .’

‘No, no, my lord,’ I protested, feeling the blushes start. ‘Indeed he did but try, to no avail.’

‘That, too, is good,’ he whispered in my ear again. ‘I had thought on saving that for myself . . .’

We came to Cambray four days later at dusk. That ride is one of the memories of my life. I rode with them as friend, as equal; title, sex, age put aside for the moment. As comrades we lived together. I saw what Raoul meant about his men: when hearts and minds are acting as one, all things are easy. He and his men had lived as one for a long while now. And when we reached Cambray, there was not even need to rehearse what they would do. They knew it like a second skin, where to go, when, who was to lead, how. We dismounted far back from the castle itself. I could see it dimly through the darkness, above the outcrop of trees and bushes that seemed to have crept up about it. Those bushes, which my father would have had uprooted as they grew, served us now as cover from any watches on the castle walls, although, as Giles had remarked before, there seemed no one on guard. The village was deserted and overgrown. And Cambray itself might have been abandoned, an empty pile of stone and crag, not large, but impenetrable, like a rock face. It was strange to stare at it from below as if I were a stranger here. For all that I had seen it so often in my thoughts, it could have been any place, any menacing place that stood brooding in the darkness. I felt a shiver of apprehension run through me. This was not the homecoming I had envisioned. But also, this was not the time to voice my fears aloud.

We had already divided into two groups: one, with their horses at hand, held ready as close to the castle wall as they could. When or if the others got inside, they would storm the main gates to help break them down. That would be their only chance of entrance. The other, smaller gates had already been so blocked up as to make attack there hopeless. And we could not attempt to scale the walls.

The rest of us picked our way on foot across the base of the cliff. The tide was out, a faint white line of foam and a far-off sound of waves. They fell like thunder, rolling closer, so that I was for hastening ahead, mindful of the way that we could be trapped against the rocks by the incoming tide. But Lord Raoul held me back. He had kept me with him this time, against his will, but, as he pointed out, almost as if arguing with himself, I knew the cave that they must find, and I alone knew the upper floor of the keep.

‘And since no other place seems safe,’ he said, and I knew from his expression that he, too, was remembering Giles, ‘best be under my eyes where I can guard you myself.’ But he had given me the best protection he could, an old mail coat that had belonged to a page killed too young in some skirmish. It was too long and heavy for comfort, but at least I could move in it and it came low enough about the hips to give some protection from a glancing blow. Armed with Giles’s little knife, I was as ready as Raoul could make me. But the rest of them had stripped down to leather coats and caps, their chain mail left behind with their horses. They wore soft leather boots, for fear that spurs and steel would make a sound upon the stone floors. In the darkness I fretted about that: I might be equipped, but they were not. And would I remember which cave? In the night all looked alike. Perhaps they had changed over the years; did not the sea eat away at rocks as at sand? What if the cliff had fallen or the cave entrance been blocked, or the passage, if there was one, been covered by fallen stones? We would be trapped then, inside, like rats, unable to get back out of our hole, and in the morning light our enemies would hunt us down, catching us between the cliffs and the sea.

We passed two smaller entrances, black shadows against the greyness of the cliff. The one we wanted was the third, as I remembered. I used to sit outside sometimes while Gwendyth gathered seaweeds and shells for her potions and watch the sea otters that swam there in the spring. We splashed through the pools, now green and slippery with weed, the men cursing as they stumbled in the dark, no knightly task, this, to go a-wading in the wet and cold. The entrance was as I remembered it, narrow and black, like a slit, running back into the steep cliffs between two high piles of rock. You would have to go out on the open beach and crane upwards to see the castle wall above the cliff’s edge there. We waited inside the entrance until someone struck a flint against the rock and all the wet and dripping walls flared for an instant. I remembered then how the green weeds grew halfway up the walls, a warning that this was no place to be caught by the inrushing sea. We let the torchbearer move ahead as we slid farther inside, going in single file, moving slightly uphill until we came to the piles of broken logs and sticks upon the shingle that marked the high-water line. Beyond that, dry sand, still slanting uphill. If this was the right cave, we would come now to the little skiff that sometimes, on fine days, we would drag down to the water’s edge and float off into the bay. The torch picked out its shape sooner than I had expected, a light-frame boat more like a coracle or round Celtic boat, still spread with the skins we covered over it carefully after each use. Beyond it, the cave curved to the right, out of sight. We stopped then in silence, looking at the boat, the sound of the sea quite gone, only the sputter of resin and our own breathing to disturb us. Lord Raoul pulled back the skins. They fell apart at his touch, rotted through by ten years’ exposure and damp, but underneath, the wood had still kept its shape. The oars were still in place, the canvas sail and the water jars set in the prow of the boat. Seeing these things now with new intent, I began to hope. We had used the little boat for our pleasure, but why had it been kept there, and why else had we taken such pains to have it sea-ready, except in case of need? We skirted past it and began the next stage of the climb. I had never gone beyond this part before and it had always frightened me as a child to come so far. Usually I had waited outside for Gwendyth. Even by daylight this section of cave would have been dark. Yet the air still smelled fresh, although salty with the tang of the sea. The tunnel, I must call it that, went on, slanting uphill, room for two men abreast, the walls black about us. The last part was so steep we had to scrabble for hand as well as footholds among the boulders that were thickly strewn. I could not tell if they were newly fallen or had always been there; at least they were dry. I held back then, blocking the men who came behind me as I stood uncertainly. Raoul, who had clambered ahead, turned round. There seemed no end to the tunnel, the roof was lower now in the last few yards, the footing underneath changed to rock. We soon might be forced to crawl on hands and knees into the darkness.

‘I am not sure, my lord,’ I said, biting at my nether lip. ‘I do not know where we are.’

Raoul put his finger to his own lips, so that we all stood still. Above us, or perhaps somewhere to our right, there was a new sound. It struck eerily when we heard it, and at first, none was willing to accept it for what it was: the sound of men laughing. We listened to that half-caught noise as if it were something we had never heard before. It was awesome to hear men’s laughter while we worked towards them like moles underground.

‘Yes, you do,’ Raoul whispered at last, when we had stood for a long time listening, ‘we have not missed the way.’ He extinguished the torch; we moved on slowly, fearful of making a sound to betray our presence.

A hundred feet of rock,
Dylan had said.

Well, so it was before we came to the narrow steps, hewn out of the rock itself at first, then of rough-cut stone spiralling upwards. The noise and laughter, sounds of men drinking and moving, were beneath us now. We had come to a level place within the thickness of the stairwell with a narrow window slit set in the wall, a high opening from which no one could see out, but from which, at this vantage point, one could look in. Then four or five more steps down, and a stone slab set at the passage end beneath the window . . .

Raoul moved back to give me chance to look through the window slit. There was no tapestry now, only the little passage that led into the main room. As far as I could tell, it was empty, used as storage place, for it was littered with odd bundles and chests. But where would the Celts have found women, or why should they have used it for its original purpose? I could not see clearly, for it was still dark, but I could at least point out to them the corner where the staircase led to the Hall below, tell them the twists they must make and how they must cross the Hall itself to gain the next stair to the lower courtyard.

Lord Falk was clever.

My father had built a keep that the defenders could hold inch by inch, withdrawing finally to this upper room, this passage, for the last stand of all. But all his safeguards for escape made difficulties for invaders to break in. We had no idea how many were the enemy. They might feel secure enough to keep scant watch upon the walls, but they would not be so foolhardy as to go unarmed in their own guard-room. The staircases were narrow, room enough for one man to hold. That meant our men must go down one by one. If they could not break through to the second staircase in sufficient numbers, they could not hope to reach the gates in the courtyard beneath. But they knew all this, had already planned what they would do. Night after night on our ride here had they talked and planned. Beside me now, Raoul smiled and eased his sword from its sheath. I could feel confidence flowing from them as they stood.

Dylan winked at me as he passed. ‘No women,’ I heard him breathe, ‘a lost chance.’ And he slid after Raoul down the last four steps.

The men put their backs against the stone. At first it did not move; then, with a groan, it fell back. At Raoul’s nod, they crept through the gap like shadows, moving swiftly out of the short passage and into the main room. I was to wait behind in the stairwell. I had agreed to that, knowing there was no time for argument. Each must serve his special place, and this time I must take my chances with the rest, since there was no one to spare for escort. But was not this what I had always wanted, to lead my men into Cambray myself? I watched as the shadows drifted noiselessly to the Hall stairway, and took their places, one behind the other, Raoul first.