Caitlyn Box Set

by Elizabeth Davies

  Of course, that might also be the reason Llewelyn hadn’t offered the man a daughter, I thought, forlornly picking up the scattered clothes. They hadn’t had far to scatter. The cell measured a few feet across and only a few more down. Windowless, cold, stinking and damp, I had spent the night in worse places than this, but not many.

  Breeches and tunic. How lovely. Ifan had provided me with men’s clothing, both items too big, but they would have to do. I put them on, wishing he had left me something to tie my hair back with. The wet tresses clung to the back of the tunic, dampening it, but at least the rest of me was dry.

  An old woollen blanket, moth-eaten and tattered, lay scrunched in a corner, and the smell of urine clung to it like fleas on a dog, but cold was a more urgent problem than stench. Desire and temper had served to keep me warm for a short while, but now that both had flown, the chill seeped into my very bones. I suspected these little boxes of hell stayed cold even in high summer, and this was November.

  How long should I wait? Joan had undoubtedly been alerted to a problem by the mare high-tailing it back to the stable without its rider, but she wouldn’t be aware of the nature of that problem. Unless she had found the opportunity to scry. Which might not be likely given that private time for the wife of the Prince of Wales was not always easy to come by. With Ifan in possession of the saddlebags and their incriminating contents, I had to warn her.

  A rattle across the bars of the neighbouring cell startled me.

  ‘Here,’ a voice said.

  Keys jangled, a lock turned. The clang of metal against metal. Then the door slammed shut and the keys rattled again, followed by slurping and chewing. My fellow prisoner was enjoying his supper. Bread and water? And would I get any?

  I moved away from the door, and the process was repeated; keys, lock, door opening and a man standing guard with his hands on the pommel of his short sword, while a second man took one step inside my cell and placed a mug and a bowl on the floor.

  ‘You might as well eat it,’ he said. ‘There will be nothing else ’til morning.’ His eyes widened and he let out a guffaw. ‘I thought them dry clothes was for Sir Ifan, not you. You looks like a boy, you do.’ He slapped a meaty thigh. ‘Ye Gods, you look a sight. Do you want me to fetch you a dress?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t intend to be in these oversized clothes for much longer. I wanted the guards to leave. Now.

  Picking up the bowl, I inspected its contents. Cawl, a Welsh stew made with mutton and root vegetables. It looked edible, and I was hungry, but I put it back down. A hunk of bread sat beside the mug, and I left it for the mice. I had other things to do before I ate.

  Transforming from Caitlyn to Cat was taking too long. I counted the heartbeats, praying no one would think to check on me. Fear, bitter and acrid, coated my tongue. If anyone saw me now…

  There! It was finally done. I blinked away the ache and stretched, dipping and arching my back, then one leg and the others. I settled into cathood the way a weary servant settles into his bed: gratefully. My pathetically short time as Caitlyn was at an end; being myself was too fraught with danger and intrigue – and men. Unbidden, the image of Hugh of Pembroke came to mind. I hoped his head hurt.

  The bars inset into the top of the wooden door were narrow but not narrow enough. My claws caught and held as I scampered up the wood and I paused, half in and half out, tail swishing for balance.

  It was clear, so I jumped down, confident and silent, a small grey shape hugging the wall, hidden in the darkness. No one saw, and no one heard, my escape.

  If I could have chuckled, I would have, as I imagined the faces of the guards when next they checked on me. I hoped they wouldn’t face too severe a punishment for the loss of their prisoner.

  Rats grew big where there was an abundance of food, and the rats at Criccieth were no exception. Most were small, but some almost matched me for size, and where rats go so can cats. Their runways and hidey-holes became mine, and I used my whiskers to good effect, feeling my way between the spaces and cracks inside the three-feet thick walls, hearing the squeak and squeal of disturbed rodents as they scurried to escape.

  The storm continued to rage outside and might blow for days, and the castle had battened down in the face of it, so I risked a short-cut across the deserted bailey, the sleeting rain drenching me in an instant. Once inside, I shook the water from my fur, but I was still a sorry sight, more drowned rat than sleek cat, the long guard hairs sticking up on end. I shook each paw in turn and scampered up the narrow winding staircase, pads gripping the worn steps.

  A sudden movement made me jump, and I leapt to the side, crouching low when I landed, ready to flee or fight. The rope handrail above my head swung in the draft from an unshuttered arrow-slit on the landing above, and I relaxed, cursing whatever lax servant had forgotten to close it. My shredded nerves wouldn’t take much more this night.

  The door to Joan’s solar was shut, but that never stopped me. No wonder castles were so cold – the holes leeched out all the heat. I squeezed through one and into the room. Warmth from the fire enveloped me, and I purred, an involuntary reaction, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up in front of the hearth and sleep.

  The door to her bed-chamber was partly open, and Joan lay huddled under piled furs and quilts of duck down. She was not alone.

  A grumbling snore filled the air, and the man responsible heaved onto his other side. For a moment, I fully expected to see honey-blond hair and fair beard, but the man sharing her bed was her husband. The current one, that is, not the husband-in-waiting.

  I leapt lightly onto the covers and patted her face.

  She slept on.

  I patted harder, careful to keep my claws sheathed.

  One eye opened, then the other as she realised who had awakened her. Her brows lifted and she mouthed, ‘What?’

  I jumped down, and trotted across the Persian rug to the door, looking over my shoulder, tail held high.

  Joan continued to lie there. I looked pointedly at her, at the door, and back at her. Did she want a written invitation from the King? I couldn’t be clearer.

  I meowed, loud enough to be heard above the snores of her husband.

  ‘Shush!’ she hissed.

  I opened my mouth to call again, but she took the hint and slid her feet out of bed, pushing the covers back. This seemed to be an evening for naked ladies. As I had done so many times before, I couldn’t help compare her milk-white, pink-tipped full breasts to my own little offerings. Her legs were longer than mine, and her stomach flatter (how did she manage that after so many pregnancies?), her waist smaller. With her flaxen hair flowing unbound to her hips, she looked every inch the beauty she was acclaimed to be. No wonder Llewelyn had eyes only for her. Why would he want to look elsewhere, when such perfection was his for the taking?

  I stalked back into the solar and hoped she would put some clothes on.

  She did.

  Closing the bedroom door behind her with a soft snick, my mistress leaned against it, her arms folded across her satin-clad chest. ‘Well? What do you want?’ Her whisper was barely audible.

  I hated changing in front of her. Hated her seeing me so vulnerable. Hated her seeing the effect the long-ago spell had on me. She might not have been the one who had cast it, but she was happy enough to keep me bound.

  I knew she was fascinated, and envious. Not of my being able to change from cat to human and back again, but of the power and skill of the long-dead witch who bespelled me. Magic of such complexity was not to be found in the world any longer. Christianity and the new god they worshipped slowly stripped away the old ways, until soon nothing would be left but burned spell-books and dead witches.

  She looked askance at my men’s attire, and once more the comparison between us irked me. I stood straighter and lifted my chin. I had survived Herleva, I would survive this mistress, and those who would come after her. Joan was nothing but a pale imitation by comparison, and she was tapping her foot with impatience.
/>
  ‘Ifan has the belladonna, both the root and the berries,’ I said.

  ‘He does not. I do.’ She jerked her head towards the table next to her loom. The saddlebags rested on it. ‘He asked me what it was, so I told him,’ she said.

  ‘What? Are you mad?’

  ‘Hardly.’ She snorted. ‘Belladonna is used for many things. I told him I suffered women’s problems and had asked you to gather some to ease my suffering. He practically fell over his feet in his haste to leave.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You rode out under my instructions. He has no cause to hold you.’

  ‘Then why has he not released me?’

  ‘When I spoke to him earlier, he was returning to the gaol to do exactly that. I also advised him you are in my service, doing my bidding. Spying for me, and by implication spying for Llewelyn.’ She walked away from the door, to the furthest corner and sat down. I followed. If we continued to speak in low voices, we would not disturb her husband.

  ‘What bidding?’ I asked.

  ‘For Llewelyn’s plan to work, William has to die, but not yet. Not until Dafydd weds Isabella. But if Dafydd is to inherit Lord William’s wealth and lands on his death, then William cannot have a son.’

  ‘How will you stop him from begetting a male heir?’

  Joan lifted the lid of a silver casket and took out a tiny glass vial.

  ‘That is the tale I have given Ifan and Llewelyn. I told them that one of the plants I often use to ease ailments of the heart, can have an unfortunate side effect on other parts of the body if too much is consumed. It renders a man impotent.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Is that what the vial did? Ouch.

  ‘Yes, it is, but it cannot be administered while William is Llewelyn’s prisoner. The potion will make him very ill, and Llewelyn might be accused of an attempt to poison the English lord. It has to be given to him when he is far away from Criccieth and my husband.’

  ‘So, when are you going to slip that in his wine?’

  The look she gave me could have stripped the skin off a cat. I think the thought of doing exactly that crossed her mind for a heartbeat.

  ‘You are slow-witted tonight,’ she sneered. ‘I intend to poison her, William’s wife, not him. How do you suppose he will father a son on me if his manhood is ruined?’

  Plots within plots. My head spun.

  ‘Let me see if I understand you correctly,’ I said. ‘Llewelyn intends to wed your son to William’s eldest daughter, and wants to ensure William does not beget an heir in the meantime. He plans to do that with this potion.’ I pointed to the vial. ‘Once the marriage between Dafydd and Isabella is consummated and Dafydd’s entitlement as William’s successor is assured, William will be killed, and Dafydd takes over William’s lands.’

  She nodded. ‘Correct. This is my husband’s intention.’

  ‘But none of this will take place,’ I said. ‘If your plotting comes to fruition, then Llewelyn will be dead, and Eva will be too, and you will marry William. You don’t intend for Dafydd to marry William’s daughter, because William is already one of the most powerful men in England and with you, the sister of the King by his side… Have I got it right? Have I missed anything?’

  ‘Yes. Your part in it.’

  Chapter 14

  Unfortunately, I did not make it back to my prison cell before my disappearance was discovered, but I was in time to enjoy the outcome. Ifan’s broad back was striding past Conah’s cell, and he halted outside mine. Keys jangled in his hand as he fumbled through them, finding the right one to release me.

  I sneaked around behind him, picked a particularly dark spot, and crouched quietly in the passageway, concealed in shadows, and settled down.

  He pushed the door open. ‘What the–?’

  I watched him stomp inside as if he would find me hiding somewhere, and scratch the back of his head. He looked around, confusion turning to slow-burning anger, and his jaw thrust forward, and he seemed to grow a couple of inches as he drew himself up and barked, ‘Guard!’

  The two men, who had happily been enjoying a warm fire, clattered down the corridor, thrusting helms on their heads and straightening boiled leather jerkins as they came. They jerked to a hasty stop outside the open cell and peered in.

  I couldn’t see their faces, but I did catch a glimpse of Ifan’s. Even in the dim light from the torches, he was puce with temper. I pitied the poor guards.

  ‘We have a traitor in our midst. Someone has set her free,’ he said, his voice calm, almost soft.

  Darn it. If I had been a heartbeat or two earlier, I would be sitting in the cell, awaiting his apology, not skulking about outside awaiting his wrath with Joan’s story crumbling like a castle made of sand.

  The guards had a good look around the cell. All eight-foot by six-foot of it. There were few places to hide, even as Cat.

  ‘Tis the work of the devil. It must be. The devil came for his own and took her away,’ said one of them.

  ‘Aye, she was a witch alright. I could tell as soon as I clapped eyes on her,’ said the other.

  Conah decided to join in. ‘I saw a white vapour glide past my door. It had horns and a tail, it did.’ He wriggled his hands out of the bars of his cell door. ‘She screamed, and the sound of it fair froze my poor heart.’

  ‘I saw it! Twas a cloud of sulphurous smoke. You saw it too, Pen, you must have.’ The one guard jabbed the other in the ribs with a finger.

  ‘Aye, I did, and it stank summat awful.’

  ‘She fornicated with the devil, and he took her to the depths of hell to become Satan’s concubine,’ Conah added in an eerie voice.

  ‘Or someone bribed a guard to release her,’ Ifan said, coldly.

  The guards shuffled from foot to foot.

  ‘Who has been here since I left?’ Ifan demanded. The calmness evaporated.

  ‘No one. Honest, sir.’

  ‘Only the devil himself,’ Conah called, his face squashed against the bars, trying to see.

  ‘Shut it, all of you,’ Ifan roared. ‘Did this devil look anything like Hugh of Pembroke, by any chance?’

  For all Joan’s expert and very believable story, my not being where I was supposed to be had inflamed Ifan’s suspicions once more. I saw his point. If Hugh had arranged my escape, then something else must be afoot, some other plot, and I sat at the centre of it. A newly-arrived insignificant woman at the heart of two separate conspiracies? Ifan did not like coincidences.

  Ifan stamped around the tiny cell, three steps this way, four steps that, kicking through the thin straw. He picked up the blanket between a finger and thumb and eyed it as if it held all the answers.

  Ifan, for all his posturing and temper, would not dare to confront William, and by default, William’s man. Llewelyn would not let him. William and the rest of the English prisoners were due to be exchanged for two-thousand gold coins in a few days. Llewelyn needed the money, and he needed William to return to his own lands without incident.

  The alliance between that particular Englishman and the Welsh prince could not be placed in jeopardy, and Ifan knew it. There was a much larger game being played than the release of one insignificant woman. After all, how much of a threat could I be?

  Ifan’s annoyance gave way to resignation, and I guessed he would not make a public display of my disappearance but would deal with it quietly. I also guessed he would not let the matter drop.

  By the time I returned to my own room, the guards had a new home, one each, and were no longer called guards. Two more soldiers had taken their places and were threatened with hanging if so much as a blade of straw went missing.

  Ifan stomped off, to his bed I hoped. At least, that was where I prayed he was headed and he wasn’t planning on launching a surreptitious search for me. He would not find me, but I wanted the reassurance that all parties were safely abed, before I could retire to my own.

  I slipped quickly back to my own room and squeezed through the hole in the door, having de
cided not to follow him. This day had been a taxing one, and I needed a warm fire and rest. Food could wait until morning.

  Safely inside, I turned back into Caitlyn, lit the wood in the hearth and sat in front of it to dry my hair. Carefully, I brushed out the tangled mess and plaited it, so it hung down my back in a dark skein, thick and heavy, then I kicked off my boots, and shed the too-large breeches and tunic, slipped a nightgown over my head, and threw extra wood on the fire. If I banked it high enough, it would last until daylight, and I was in sore need of its comforting warmth.

  Sleep eluded me, however; my mattress was too hard, too soft, too lumpy, the sounds of the storm still raging against my shuttered window, too loud. Thoughts scurried through my mind like rats in a barn, gnawing and squeaking. I tossed, first one way, then the other. Ifan’s face alternated with Hugh’s, hiding in the flickering flame of a half-spent candle.

  Two men, so different, yet both with an uncommon interest in me. Joan had tried to ensure Ifan saw me as an ally, helping to forward Llewelyn’s plan, but now he had my unexplained escape from the cell to rekindle his suspicions of treachery. Hugh might be persuaded to see me as an ally. After all, my purpose was to help William in his quest for power, though neither Hugh nor William had been made aware of Joan’s plot, and they wouldn’t be, either. Eva’s death had to appear to be from natural causes. Any hint of wrongdoing and the scheme would fail. If any link to Joan, however small, could be proved, then there would be no safe harbour for her, from either her husband or her lover. William might be enamoured of Joan, but I suspected he wouldn’t condone getting rid of his wife.

  My part in all of this troubled me deeply. Killing an innocent woman lay heavy on my heart and the weight of it made me writhe and squirm in my bed.