Queen of Lost Stars (Dragonblade Series/House of St. Hever) (21 page)

Wrapped in a heavy woolen robe, she went in search of him, thinking that she did not want him standing on the wall all night in the cold, irritating his healing scar. Surely he could not have gone further than the wall in his promise to observe and direct. But the only senior knight she saw, from her perch on the steps of the keep, was Thomas as he paced his rounds. It had never occurred to her that Kaspian had intended to ride with the army. The thought had never entered her mind because he was still so very weak. And that was what Nicholas was here for, was he not?

Her anxiety took flight. Too timid to approach the soldiers and ask where Kaspian was, she went to the last place she could think of, a small room on the first floor of the keep that the knights sometimes used to gather in, the one that used to be the guard’s room. A faint glow radiated from the small window cut into the old door. Gingerly, she opened the ancient panel.

Kaspian’s blonde head was bent over the table in the middle of the room, a table so large that they had literally built the room around it. It was strong enough to support several men sitting atop it. He was clad in his mail, looking for all the world as if he were fully prepared to go to war. Hearing the door creak open, he had lifted his eyes, not surprised to see who stood in the dim light. In fact, he smiled.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

She stepped into the room, feeling a bit guilty, as if she should not have come. But there were no words she could find to describe the relief she felt upon seeing him.

“I… I couldn’t sleep,” she lied softly. “I’ve gotten so used to your snoring that I can’t sleep without it.”

He went to her, pulling the woolen cloak more tightly about her in the chill of the room. “A gracious fabrication, madam,” he said. “But I happen to know that I keep you awake with it. I’ve seen you fall asleep in mid-afternoon because you’ve been up most of the night.”

She tried not to look sheepish. “Not because your snoring keeps me awake,” she said. “If I have been up in the night, it has been tending you, my lord.”

He snorted. “Again, your tact is astonishing.” He gazed down at her a moment, taking in the beauty of her face, and felt himself warming inside. “You really should go back to bed. This is no place for you.”

She shrugged. “I was worried about you. The cold will aggravate your wound.” She looked around him, at the vellum on the table. “What is keeping you so occupied that you must spend the night in this Godforsaken room?”

He put his arm around her shoulders and led her to the table. “A map,” he said, gesturing to the dark lines on the tanned hide. “This is the border of England and Wales. The red marks you see are the castles. Lavister is here,” he thumped the map, “and Hawarden is here.”

Madelayne could read but the map looked like a bunch of squiggles to her. “I saw Nicholas and the army leave,” she said. “What has you so worried about Hawarden, Kaspian?”

He shrugged, his blue eyes riveted to the map. “I’m trying to see if there is any pattern to Dafydd’s attacks,” he said. “He may be planning something I’m just not seeing. Having been ill for these past weeks, I’m afraid my mind hasn’t been as sharp as it usually is.”

“Do you see a pattern?”

“Not yet. But he’s up to something; I can feel it.”

Her eyes moved from the map to his face, studying his strong profile in the light of the taper. It was quiet and peaceful, and she realized as she gazed at him that the only reason she had come to find him was because she couldn’t stand to be away from him, not even for a couple of hours. He was coming to fill her whole world like some great flowing energy, filling the holes that used to exist, creating a complete person with his aura. He caught her staring at him and he smiled.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

Her cheeks flushed. How could she say what she was feeling without sounding like a silly woman? Shaking her head, she looked away. “Nothing,” she whispered. “I should return and leave you to your work.”

He grasped her chin gently, forcing her to look at him. “I asked you a question, madam. Why were you gazing at me so?”

She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her. He put his arms around her, trapping her, when she pulled harder. “Why?” he asked again.

She tried to avoid his eyes but they inevitably met. He was smiling at her and softly, in resignation, she laughed. “Because I wanted to,” she said with feigned irritation. “Is that so difficult to understand?”

“No,” he said. “Provided you let me stare at you as well without thinking me a fool.”

“I would never think that.”

They stared at each other a moment longer, laughing awkwardly when there was nothing more to be said. Kaspian thought that he would take the opportunity to kiss her again but the door to the room suddenly burst open and Thomas loomed in the archway.

“My lord,” he said, the tension in his voice evident. “Our patrols have captured a spy. You had better come.”

Kaspian was on the move, Madelayne in hand. Without a word, he quickly escorted her to the steps of the keep, leaving her standing to watch him walk away. He and Thomas disappeared into the gatehouse and instead of letting them go about their business alone, Madelayne decided to following. She was wildly curious about what was transpiring, for spies were intrigue and mystery that piqued the imagination. She knew very well she should retreat to her chamber, but she somehow felt the need to know of the danger Kaspian, and Lavister, was facing. As if the spy would somehow cause Kaspian to jump into action and she must be there to stop him.

The gatehouse of Lavister Crag, as massive as it was, also contained the vault. There were two sublevels, one beneath the other, and Madelayne could hear voices as she entered. She knew they were down below her in the innards of the structure and, silently, she slipped down the spiral stairs, staying well out of sight. It was dank and musty, and more than once she struggled to keep from sneezing. Slipping into an alcove on the stairwell that was meant to store weapons, she felt like a spy herself as she listened to the voices below.

The light from two torches filled the room, causing shadows to dance on the wall. Thomas and Kaspian were muttering between them in tones she could not discern, hisses resonating off the walls. Kaspian’s voice sounded like echoes of thunder.

“You might as well tell us what we wish to know,” Thomas could finally be understood. “Your life is forfeit if you do not. Speak and we may spare you.”

The alleged spy was small and thin, and had been caught by a patrol lingering at the base of the hill that led to Lavister. His black eyes glared up at his captors, unafraid.

“I do not know anything. I am a farmer.”

“Farmers do not carry weapons.”

“I told those idiots who captured me that I was hunting. I’m not a warrior.”

“A farmer who hunts at night with a Welsh crossbow?” Thomas shook his head. “You cannot honestly expect us to believe that.”

“Believe what you will. That’s the truth.”

“Somehow I doubt that. Let me see your left hand.”

The man’s calm facade wavered. “Why?”

Thomas gestured to a pair of soldiers standing beside the prisoner, who immediately wrestled the man’s bound hands into view. Thomas inspected the middle finger on the left hand, running an experienced eye over the area.

“Your finger is bent at the topmost joint and heavily calloused as well. This is the hand of an archer.” His stare was hard on the man. “How does a farmer explain that?”

The man didn’t say anything for quite some time. Kaspian, observing, never intervened in an interrogation unless nothing else could be done to obtain the information sought. Thomas was usually quite brilliant at such things and Kaspian simply sat back, as most good commanders do, and observed while his second in command waged the confrontation.

“So you are planning to do away with me, then,” the man finally muttered. “The longer I do not tell you what you want to know, the longer I’ll live.”

“Untrue,” Thomas countered. “If you do not speak, we will simply do away with you and be no worse off than we were before. You may want to consider that.”

Uncertainty flickered in the prisoner’s eyes. “Then, in truth, I will tell you that I am only an observer. I know nothing of any value. I cannot help you.”

“What battles have you seen with Dafydd?”

The man sighed in resignation; there was no use in going through the ruse of denial any longer. He wasn’t particularly strong and thought perhaps his cooperation would save his life. The words came quickly. “Many,” he said. “Most recently, Hawarden.”

“So it was Dafydd,” Thomas confirmed, casting a long look at Kaspian, who was back in the shadows. “We had heard as much. You realize that we have an army heading to Hawarden as we speak.”

“I know.”

“I suspect that is why you are here, is it not? To report back to Dafydd on the movement from Lavister?”

The man hesitated a brief moment before answering. “Aye,” he said. “But it will not matter what you do or how many men you send. Hawarden will fall.”

“You are confident.”

The man’s dark eyes glittered. “I know Dafydd,” he said. “The siege of Hawarden has been going on for days. From the beginning Dafydd was determined to slaughter. I saw him personally swing a flail at an English knight and hit him in the head. Knocked him clean off his mount. I… I heard the knight pray, softly, because he was so badly injured. But Dafydd had no mercy. He killed him.”

An ominous sense of disgust arose in Kaspian as the man continued. “The knight lay in the mud and called for his wife and unborn child. He didn’t weep, mind you, but more a prayer for their safety. He asked God to watch over his family. But Dafydd stood over him with a look of death in his eye. He was determined to have the first kill of the battle and he did. He bashed the knight’s brains to mush. He had to set an example to the rest of us.”

Thomas looked at Kaspian and they both thought the same thing:
Cairn.
It was the same thing that had happened to Cairn, that brutal savagery of the Welsh towards the English that was meant to send a message to all of England. And send a message, it had. They were all prepared for the worst.

“Dafydd means to destroy everything his brother has worked so hard to secure,” Thomas said after a moment. “Doesn’t he realize he is only going to destroy himself and Wales in the process? Edward will never relent and we have far more men and resources than you do.”

The man shrugged his shoulders wearily. “We must try. If it were Dafydd invading England, would you not try to stop him?”

Kaspian’s voice came from the shadows. “We are warriors, not politicians. We fight where and when we are told and our opinions have little bearing.” He stepped closer, into the light, his focus on the spy. “Dafydd cannot possibly imagine that he will take Hawarden.”

“It was quite a battle the last I saw. He will try.”

Kaspian gazed at the man a moment, his blue eyes hard. “He would have to be insane to try, which leads me to believe that Hawarden is not his true objective.”

The man lowered his eyes. “I cannot read his mind. I would not know.”

Madelayne crouched in the alcove, listening to the confession with interest. Much was said that she didn’t understand but much was said that was frightening. Still, after a few minutes, she grew bored. There wasn’t anything particularly telling of excitement happening and she considered leaving. But the moment she moved to do so, footsteps reverberated down the spiral stairs. She shrank back into the alcove as a soldier came rushing past her.

“My lords!” the soldier called. “We’ve movement on the horizon, heading this way. An army!”

Kaspian looked at the prisoner; the man’s face was unreadable. Thomas raced back up the stairs with the soldier who had brought the message, leaving orders to put the spy in the dungeon. Madelayne pressed herself flat against the wall as Kaspian mounted the steps past her with another soldier behind him. When the pair had cleared the top of the stairs, Madelayne’s attention was drawn to the room below where she could hear more voices and footsteps.

Suddenly, the tone changed and a great bang echoed against the walls. The sounds of a struggle were unmistakable and she fearfully peered from her alcove, watching the shadows of a two-man dance across the walls. There was a fight going on, that much was certain. Startled, she stood there in disbelief until the sounds of a struggle stopped. When footfalls quickly approached her, she spun around to race up the steps but lost her footing. Before she could recover, a hand was biting into her arm.

“Ah!” It was a man she didn’t recognize and assumed him to be the spy. “I need you, wench. Show me the way from this place!”

Madelayne was terrified. “Let me go!”

The prisoner was small but strong. He yanked at her, bruising her arm. “Show me the way out or I’ll kill you where you stand!”

Madelayne didn’t know what to do. The spy had already killed the soldier below, she was sure, and therefore he would have no qualms about killing her as well. Stumbling up the steps into the floor level of the gatehouse, the ward beyond was a chaos of men. Not wanting to be seen, the spy pulled her behind various barriers to shield them. He had her hand twisted painfully behind her back and, on more than one occasion, she yelped with pain, but fearing for her life, she led him back toward the kitchens were a passage led down into a series of caves beneath the castle.

They were small caves used as dovecotes for the castle food supply as well as for storage. There was, however, a crack that led out onto the hillside that could be used to slip free. It was a secret escape for Lavister as well as a secret entrance The hillside was so steep, however, that the opening had never been breached. Also, it would have been easy to pick off one man at a time, as the opening was barely wide enough for single file. Frightened, Madelayne led the man into the wall and consequently to the stairs that led down to the dark, narrow passage. She had no sooner reached the first step when the spy suddenly grunted and released her. Startled, she whirled about to see Kaspian standing behind her with the hilt of his sword held aloft like a hammer.