Escape from Wolfhaven Castle (12 page)

Lady Mortlake clasped her hands together. ‘I do hate meanness of spirit … it’s like a dagger to my heart.’

The old woman harrumphed.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Lady Mortlake looked up and tried to smile. ‘But enough about me and my problems. You said you need my help? Anything! Simply tell me what you require.’

Elanor leaned forward in her eagerness. ‘My father’s castle has been attacked. We need help … men and arms …’

‘Ah, impossible. My husband and his men are away from home.’

Elanor clasped her hands together. ‘My father and all his people have been taken prisoner. We need to rescue them!’

‘But what can we do? No, it’s totally impractical.’

‘We need to raise an army, we need to rouse the country folk and ask them for help, we need to march back to the castle—’

‘March? I? Oh, my sweet girl, it’s out of the question.’

‘But what of your husband and his men? Can we not send a message to them?’

‘But who would carry the message? My poor daughter?’ She indicated the little girl, big-eyed and sucking her thumb. ‘My poor, mad mother-in-law?’ She waved at the old woman. ‘I? It is utterly unfeasible.’

‘I could take a message to the lord,’ Sebastian said. ‘Just tell me where to go.’

‘Me too!’ Tom cried.

‘We’ll all go,’ Quinn said.

Lady Mortlake tinkled an affectionate laugh. ‘Oh, sweet children. What kind of hostess do you think I am, to send you out into the howling storm at midnight? No, no, it simply cannot be done.’

For a moment, Elanor drooped. But then she rallied herself. ‘If you could give us a bed for the night, we’ll go in search of your husband in the morning.’

‘A bed? My sweet, there’s not a spare stick of furniture in the place. All sold, I’m afraid.’

‘Except for your own four-poster,’ the old woman pointed out.

‘Well, yes, but I can hardly be expected to be turned out of my own bed for a mob of uninvited children.’ Lady Mortlake shuddered. ‘Not to mention that beast you call a dog.’

Fergus thumped his tail.

‘There must be somewhere we can sleep,’ Quinn exclaimed.

‘You can put us anywhere. Even in the stable, if you like,’ Elanor said.

Lady Mortlake looked horrified. ‘No, no, I couldn’t do that.’

‘We are so tired,’ Quinn said.

‘And hungry,’ Sebastian added.

Lady Mortlake sighed. ‘You want food too? Surely I’ve explained there’s not a crumb in the whole castle.’

They all stood in silence, drooping in disappointment. Nobody knew what to do.

‘Eugenie! Stop sucking your thumb! Do you want teeth like a rabbit?’ Lady Mortlake snapped. Eugenie took her thumb out of her mouth. Lady Mortlake waved a languid hand. ‘Well, it’s late and I am sure
you are all tired. Eugenie! Put our dear guests in the Queen’s Suite.’

‘That doesn’t sound too bad,’ Quinn said reassuringly to Elanor, who was looking very white and anxious.

Eugenie took the four children to a vast, echoing room with an old straw mattress tossed in a corner. The glass in the windows was broken, the hearth was filled with fallen birds’ nests, and cobwebs draped the empty candelabra. Even worse, the little girl took away the only candle when she left.

Tom did not much like the look of the mattress, which was half-chewed by rats, and so they huddled together in the corner of the room, hungry, cold, tired, and miserable.

‘What is more powerful than love, and more evil than hatred?’ Quinn said dreamily. ‘The poor have it and the rich need it. The dead taste it all the time, but if the living eat it, they will die.’

‘Whatever it is, it sounds horrible,’ Elanor said.

‘Quinn, now’s not the time for riddles.’ Tom spoke wearily, his head resting on his arm.

‘Every time is the time for riddles.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Sebastian said. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Yet you yourself spoke the answer,’ she said.

‘Quinn, don’t be so annoying. I wish you’d never got apprenticed to that stupid witch,’ Tom said.

‘Arwen is not stupid! And riddles are not stupid either. They make us wise.’

Elanor said timidly, ‘But how?’

Quinn spoke with deep fervour. ‘Riddles make us think harder and deeper and stronger. They make us look at the world aslant. They teach us that we can solve what seems unsolvable, if we try hard enough.’

‘So our bellies are empty and we’re freezing cold. How can you solve that?’ Sebastian spoke with heavy sarcasm.

Tom jumped up. ‘Let’s go down to that great hall. We can throw some more wood on the fire, and wrap ourselves in those animal skins.’

‘A fine idea, except for the animal skins,’ Quinn said, getting up. ‘I am so stiff and cold. Look, my shawl is so wet I can wring water out of it!’

Sebastian pulled Elanor to her feet. ‘Come on. If we get a good night’s sleep, it’ll all seem better in the morning.’

Fergus yawned, got to his feet and stretched, then followed his master with a wagging tail. Tom groped his way through the darkness to the door, then turned the door handle and pulled.

The door did not open.

He yanked harder, twisting and pulling the handle so hard the door rattled. Then he kicked it. ‘We’ve been locked in!’

16

PRISONERS

T
om was furious with himself. How could he have been so stupid? He had suspected that Lord Mortlake was somehow involved with the invasion of his home, yet he had let himself be persuaded to walk straight into a trap.

Now they were prisoners.

‘We have to escape,’ he said.

Sebastian ran to the window, opening the casement wide and leaning out. The wind blew his red curls back. ‘We’re too high here, we can’t climb out,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘If we had any sheets and blankets, we could have tied them together to make a rope,’ Quinn said.

‘Fergus can’t climb down a rope,’ Tom said. ‘And there’s no chance I’m leaving him behind.’

‘Hey, someone’s signalling,’ Sebastian said.

The other three rushed to the window, and looked out. From one of the tower windows, a light was being flashed. On and on it went, then suddenly, far away, another light flashed in response. Three times it flashed, and then both lights were blown out. ‘My guess is Lady Mortlake is letting her husband know he’s got to come home,’ Tom said. ‘We have to get out of here before he returns!’ He went back to the door and shook the handle again, then bent and looked through the keyhole. ‘I can’t see anything. Elanor, could you get that ring of yours to shine again?’

‘I don’t know what I did to make that happen,’ she answered, coming to stand beside him. She rubbed the ring with her finger, but nothing happened. She rubbed it again. ‘Please light up for me,’ she coaxed it.

‘Try blowing on it,’ Quinn suggested. ‘You blew on your hands to make them warm, do you remember?’

As soon as Elanor blew on the ring, it began to glow again. By its soft light, Tom was able to see that
the key had been left in the keyhole. He thought for a moment, then went to his knapsack and got out the map. He unfolded it and slid it under the door.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Sebastian said.

‘I’ll show you,’ Tom answered. He poked at the key with the tip of his dagger. The key fell out and landed with a plop on the map on the other side of the door. Tom drew the map back under the door, and the key came with it. Tom picked it up, unlocked the door, then bowed extravagantly.

‘That was quite clever,’ Sebastian admitted.

‘Why, thank you,’ Tom said. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’

They tiptoed out into the corridor, and Tom locked the door behind them and pocketed the key. ‘That’ll bamboozle them.’

‘Good idea,’ Quinn said.

‘Now, which way …’ Elanor said, looking left, then right. ‘Does anyone remember?’

The corridor stretched a long way in either direction, bare and dusty and dark. The light from Elanor’s moonstone ring only illuminated a small area.

Fergus took a few steps to the left and turned back to look at them, whining an enquiry.

‘Let’s go that way,’ Tom said.

They ran after the wolfhound, who led them through the empty, echoing castle and down flight after flight of steps. It seemed to take hours, and Tom began to fear they would never find their way out.

At last, Fergus led them to the kitchen, a vast, damp place scuttling with cockroaches. Empty flour bins lay on their side, and sacks drooped sadly, spilling dust. Fergus went up to a cupboard door at the far end, and sniffed it. Then he looked back hopefully at Tom, wagging his tail.

‘That cupboard’s padlocked,’ Quinn said. ‘Do you think …?’

‘I do,’ Sebastian said, and drew his sword. With one strong blow he smashed the chain.

For a moment, they all froze, listening intently, but there was no cry of alarm, or any sign that anyone had heard them.

‘Look!’ Tom pointed. ‘So much for there not being a crumb to eat in the castle!’

The cupboard door had swung open and revealed fat hams hanging on hooks, rows of smoked ducks and baskets filled with dried cod. The shelves were stacked with jars of preserves. Rounds of cheese in red wax sat next to long loaves of bread sprinkled with salt and rosemary, while a plate was piled high with jam tarts.

Sebastian’s eyes gleamed. ‘Let’s grab what we can and get out of here,’ he said, seizing a jam tart in either hand. ‘Serves them right for locking us up.’

‘Serves them right for giving us nothing to eat,’ Quinn said. ‘Which, by the way, is the answer to my riddle.’

Tom took down a ham, Quinn seized two loaves of bread, and Sebastian crammed one of the jam tarts into his mouth and grabbed a wheel of cheese. Elanor hesitated. ‘Oh, do you think we should?’

‘We need to eat,’ Sebastian said through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Lady Mortlake was just downright mean. The woman locked us up! Who knows what she had planned for us.’

Quinn clasped both hands together at her heart, as
they’d all seen Lady Mortlake do. ‘
I do hate meanness of spirit … it’s like a dagger to my heart.
’

Elanor laughed. A most unexpected dimple flashed in her cheek. Tom realised he had never seen her laugh before. ‘They did lock us up,’ she said. ‘I guess that means we are at war with them.’

‘Yes, the spoils of war,’ Sebastian cried.

Elanor stepped into the pantry. ‘Look! Everything is stamped with our insignia!’

She showed the others the wolf stamp upon the wax seal on the jars. ‘This must have been stolen from Wolfhaven merchants. Father said the boats were being attacked by bandits!’

‘Lord Mortlake’s bandits, by the looks of it,’ Sebastian said.

‘Then in that case we should take as much as we can carry,’ Elanor said, grabbing a sack and filling it.

‘Good idea,’ Tom said, throwing sacks and jars into his knapsack till it bulged. Quinn and Sebastian did the same.

‘Now let’s go!’ Elanor cried.

They hurried out of the kitchen, looking for some way out. ‘Where shall we go once we get out of here?’ Tom panted, racing along the dark corridor.

‘Listen to the storm,’ Quinn said. She could hear the ice hitting the windows. ‘We need to find shelter somewhere.’

‘We need to get away from here as fast as we can,’ said Sebastian, urgently.

‘Let’s head to the forest,’ Quinn replied. ‘We can take refuge under the trees.’

‘There’s that horse in the stable,’ Elanor said. ‘We would get along much faster if we took turns in riding it.’

Tom looked at her in admiration. ‘Good idea.’

‘Let’s go!’ Sebastian urged.

17

THE
WITCHING TIME

B
eware, little maid. Danger comes.

Quinn peered into the darkness, her pulse jumping. ‘Who’s there? Who spoke?’

It is the midnight hour, the witching time. Thou must beware.

‘What’s wrong?’ Tom whispered. ‘Did you hear something?’

‘I … I don’t know.’ Quinn’s hands felt for the wooden medallion that hung about her neck. It was warm, even though the air around her was so cold her breath puffed white.

She and her friends were lost in the cavernous halls of Frostwick Castle, unable to find any door or
window that was unlocked and unbarred.

‘There must be a way out,’ Elanor whispered, exhausted. The light sank as her strength diminished.

‘I’ll bash down the very next door we come to,’ Sebastian promised her. ‘No matter the noise I make.’

Beware!
The voice grew urgent.

‘Let’s run,’ Quinn urged. ‘Come on!’

They broke into a stumbling jog, heedless of the sound of their footsteps in the echoing darkness.

Fergus growled deep in his throat and stopped, stiff-legged, all his fur bristling along his spine. Looking ahead, Quinn saw the shape of an arched doorway illuminated by a faint flicker of candlelight.

The light blossomed like a pale death lily. At its heart was a frail shadow.

The captives whirled to run, but even as panic coursed through her blood, Quinn stopped and looked back over her shoulder. She recognised the shape of the stick-limbs and wild black hair of the little girl who had opened the front door to them. ‘Eugenie,’ she whispered.