The Stone Rose

by Carol Townend

  Ned put on a ragged smile, remembering how St Clair had warned him off his daughter. ‘Aye, sir. I’d die for Mistress Gwenn.’

  ‘I hope...’ Jean was tiring ‘...it won’t come to that. If...if it come to the worst...take them north... Relatives...north...’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Gwenn knows.’ Jean gasped, and his cheeks went grey. The blade of his opponent dripped scarlet. Dropping his dagger, the knight clapped a hand to his ribs.

  Ned started forwards. ‘Sir Jean!’

  Waldin caught Ned’s left hand and thrust something at him. ‘Go, lad! Take this. Don’t let her look back.’ And the champion booted Ned in the small of the back, leaving him no choice but to race for the stairs.

  Ned thrust whatever it was that Waldin had given him down the front of his tunic.

  Jean flung a dazzling smile at his foes and made a dreadful pass a limbless leper could have evaded. François de Roncier’s men closed in for the kill. The final blow, when it came, was greeted with another of those extraordinary smiles.

  Blackness. Tumult. Screaming. Pressed to her sister’s side, Katarin’s mind was spinning faster than a wheel. Her sister had made a blindfold of her hands, and had covered her eyes, so she could see nothing. She felt Gwenn’s body jerk as though she’d been hit. Someone screeched. To the child, the screaming sounded like the end of the world. Who was it? Not Gwenn? Not Papa? There was no comfort in the blinkered dark behind Gwenn’s hands. Katarin felt smothered. Was not death dark? A war had broken out in her father’s hall, and she had to see.

  Impulsively, she shoved at Gwenn’s hands. They fell at the first push. Her hazel eyes blinked into flaring torchlight which made monsters of the men upon whom she gazed. Katarin’s heart banged louder than a drum and seemed to add to the uproar.

  One of the monsters was tearing towards her. His eyes shone like blue lamps and his helmet was askew. His cheek was streaked with red paint, and there was more of it daubed on his hair. It was a moment before Katarin realised that the monster was Captain Fletcher. She whimpered. And because his expression was more frightening than the darkness beneath Gwenn’s blanketing hands, she looked beyond him and saw what no child should ever see.

  She saw her father as the cold steel of his enemy’s sword was buried in his chest. Katarin saw everything – the sudden gush of bubbling blood on her father’s lips, the gloating triumph lighting the eyes of the shining metal man towering over her father, and the impotent rage which distorted her uncle’s face. She even saw her father’s final, serene smile.

  How peaceful Papa looks, Katarin thought, in all this horror. Death sits well on him. And with a pang, she wondered if Papa would be able to talk to Mama now he had joined her. Katarin would like to be peaceful too...

  Ned hauled on Gwenn’s arm, trying to lift her. Terrified that she and her sister were to be torn asunder, Katarin squeaked and buried her face in the warmth of Gwenn’s breast. She clung like fury. She’d seen enough.

  Blackness. Tumult. Screaming.

  ‘Come, Gwenn. Come with me,’ Ned said urgently. Katarin felt herself lifted. She shuddered. Was there no peace left on the earth? Katarin only wanted to be quiet, and peaceful.

  ‘Take Katarin.’ That was Gwenn’s voice. Katarin screwed up her eyes in case they should open without her willing it. Didn’t Gwenn want to be with her? Releasing her sister, Katarin slapped her hands over her ears. She’d heard enough. Outside her own, small self, there was nothing. With eyes and ears closed, Katarin began stumbling about in her mind for a quiet place where she could hide from the ravening monsters. And while Ned carried her up the endlessly twisting stairs, she found what she was searching for. It was a refuge, a haven, deep in a secret part of her she had not visited before. It was heaven, for no one could touch her when she was there. She was safe. Her eyes remained closed. The rosebud mouth relaxed. Her private retreat was all brightness and calm. There were no dark shadows which might shroud the Devil. God was not there either, because since last August when her mother had died, Katarin had stopped believing in God. But there was peace in abundance, peace and quiet. And because peace was all Katarin wanted, she resolved never to leave her sanctuary; never, ever again.

  Casting a final look round her father’s devastated hall, Gwenn noted, with the cold detachment of one who has taken more than she could stomach, that Raymond had fallen. Her brother lay on his belly in the rushes, still as death. His sword had been knocked from his hand, and his head was twisted to one side, brown hair half concealing a gaping wound across temple and ear. Even at this distance Gwenn could see it glistened with blood. The rest of him was pale as alabaster. The Archangel Gabriel could not help him now.

  With a resolution that yesterday she would have condemned as callousness, Gwenn slammed the door at the bottom of the stairs, threw the heavy bolts home, and darted after Ned and Katarin. At the top of the spiral, she rammed the second door shut and barred that too.

  ‘Thank God your father built these doors,’ Ned said, frantically calculating how long they would hold out against a sustained assault. And more as reassurance for himself, he added. ‘The twists of the spiral favour me.’

  Stooping to pick up her sister, Gwenn frowned. ‘I don’t see–’

  ‘The stairs were constructed to favour the defenders – the turns favour a right-handed swordsman at the top,’ Ned explained briefly, while he sized up the solar with a military eye. This was the first time he had entered the women’s quarters and private family rooms. They were smaller than he had imagined, barely large enough to hold the beds. Ned saw nothing that he could put to use in this crisis, not even another door to barricade the children behind.

  Feet thudded overhead. Looking up at the rafters, Ned swallowed a curse. His worst fears had not included de Roncier’s company scaling the tower walls. If the Count’s wolves were prowling the ramparts...

  Most of the women were weeping, save two. Of these braver souls, one – he recognised Mary – was crouched before an ugly pink statue of Our Lady, praying. The other, the wet nurse, Johanna, was cradling St Clair’s heir. Seeing that Johanna’s dark eyes were pinned on him, Ned addressed her. ‘Did anyone think to bolt the door to the parapet walk?’

  The wet nurse started, blushing like a coy virgin. ‘No. No. I don’t think–’

  ‘Christ save us!’ Ned tried to distinguish the thumps and scurryings overhead, but with the uproar from below, it was impossible.

  ‘What is it, Ned?’ Gwenn’s touch on his arm made him start.

  He did his best to smile. ‘We’re bottled up. They’ve got to the roof, and they’ll be coming at that door from above and below. When I defend you from the landing–’

  ‘No, Ned!’ She saw immediately what he was driving at. ‘It would be suicide! You must stay in here.’

  Crazily, Ned’s spirits lifted. So she did care, a little. Then he remembered he was the only protection she had. ‘But mistress, I must–’

  ‘Defend us from here. I want you in here.’

  It made little difference, Ned thought wretchedly, whether he fought in or out of the solar. In the end, the outcome would be the same. So much for St Clair’s carefully constructed stairs. He spread his hands.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You’d best prepare yourself.’

  Juggling her sister in her arms, Gwenn drew a battered dagger from her sleeve. It was rusty enough to have belonged to one of the Knights of the Round Table. ‘They’ll not get me.’

  ‘No, mistress,’ Ned said as reassuringly as he could. ‘They’ll not harm a woman.’

  The wet nurse gave a distressed murmur and clutched the baby to her breast. ‘They’ll hurt my little lamb though, won’t they, Captain?’

  Ned bit his lip and placed a bruised hand on the baby’s fluffy hair. He couldn’t find it in his heart to lie to the woman, whose dark melting eyes were brimming with great love for the infant. There was no doubt that de Roncier had come for the babe, and it was beginning to look as though God had decreed t
hat Philippe St Clair’s lifespan would be short. If only Sir Jean’s much-vaunted improvements had included building another way out of the solar...

  ‘They’ll not harm Philippe! I’ll not permit it!’ Gwenn declared, eyes glowing with a martial light.

  Ned was desperate enough to clutch at straws. He scoured the solar for inspiration. St Clair had entrusted him with his children’s lives, and though there had not been time to confer with him, Ned had the distinct impression that he assumed they could escape. ‘Take Gwenn and run,’ he had said. Run. But they were trapped. How could they run?

  He spoke aloud, ‘There must be a way out.’ If Jean St Clair thought they could escape, then escape they could. There was a window seat below a couple of narrow window slits, piled high with hastily tidied bedlinen. No inspiration there. There were a couple of sleeping chambers, a privy, a pile of rubble left by the mason...

  ‘I think,’ Ned announced cautiously, ‘we might have a chance. Gwenn, grab some warm clothing and those sheets.’

  Brown eyes blinked. ‘We’re going?’ Gwenn turned to see what Ned had been looking at and her eyes opened wide. ‘Ned! You don’t think–?’

  ‘Hurry!’ There was no knowing how long they had. While Gwenn scrambled to her alcove, Ned snatched up a candle and took it to the privy. He tore back the tapestry hanging. The wet nurse was keeping closer than his shadow, he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. Together they peered down a shaft that was darker and smelt viler than any pit in Satan’s lair. The candlelight did not shine to the bottom, but that was probably a mercy.

  ‘Stinks a bit.’ Johanna screwed up her nose and set a hand on Ned’s broad shoulders, almost caressingly. ‘And it will be a tight squeeze. You don’t really intend to drop Mistress Gwenn down that, do you, Captain?’

  ‘I do.’

  She drew her head back, revolted, and shook it decisively. ‘I wouldn’t go. What makes you think she will?’ Johanna’s jealousy had set Gwenn down as a vain, over-indulged knight’s daughter who’d not sully her clothes for anything.

  ‘She’ll go if I have to throw her,’ Ned said, ‘but I doubt I’ll have to resort to force.’

  ‘And you? Do you go too?’

  ‘Aye. I will protect her. And the children. Gwenn is my life,’ he declared with painful clarity.

  A sharp cry and the pounding of a multitude of booted feet had his head twisting round.

  Johanna swallowed down a rush of bile. Confronted so blatantly with Ned Fletcher’s blind devotion to Gwenn Herevi, she had no option but to concede defeat. Sourly, she reflected that from the beginning she had not had a hope of winning his affection. But while Johanna was able, albeit reluctantly, to dismiss her dreams of winning Ned Fletcher’s heart, she could not find it in her to like her rival. And she continued to love him. The privy shaft yawned, a hell of an escape route, but the only one he had. François de Roncier’s reputation being what it was, Johanna had little doubt that he would give no quarter to St Clair’s English captain. Count François de Roncier would have Ned Fletcher spitted on a sword sooner than he’d blink.

  Holding Philippe fast in one arm, Johanna took Ned’s hand. Blue eyes met hers, and the fair brows lifted in faint surprise. Johanna shivered. She’d like to remember Ned’s eyes shining and bright, not clouded in death. Gently, for his hand was hurt and she was savouring the warmth his skin, Johanna guided the candle he was holding towards the unfinished privy shaft.

  ‘This privy’s a mite wider, Captain,’ she informed him, huskily, ‘on account of it not being finished. The carpenter has yet to fix the wooden seat. But I fear it is doubtful whether you would fit down even this one.’ Her eyes lingered on Ned’s face and shoulders as though she would brand an image of him in her brain for all time.

  ‘And as this one has not been christened, it’s clean,’ Ned pointed out with a wry grin.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Gwenn announced from the door arch. She had a bundle and sheets under one arm, and her sister was attached to the other. Releasing Katarin, she removed an object from her sister’s clutch.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ned demanded. They could only take what was absolutely necessary.

  A stubborn chin inched up. ‘Grandmama’s statue.’

  ‘Jesu, Gwenn! We’re running for your brother’s life and you’d weigh us down with that millstone?’

  ‘The Stone Rose is coming.’

  ‘Jesu!’

  Gwenn wrapped the statue in a torn sheet, stalked to the privy and without another word, lobbed both bundles down the half-constructed shaft.

  Johanna’s jaw dropped. ‘You don’t balk at going down, mistress?’

  ‘To save him,’ Gwenn nodded at the babe nestling Johanna’s arms, ‘I’d spit in the Devil’s eye. But I’ll go down the new one, if you don’t mind, Johanna.’

  ‘Mistress?’

  ‘Stand aside, will you? You’re blocking my way. See, Katarin?’ Gwenn said, beginning to wind a sheet about her sister. Ned helped, tying the knots as securely as he could. ‘We’re going to climb–’

  ‘What about the rest of us?’ Klara wailed from the archway. ‘You’re not leaving the rest of us to be carved into pieces, are you?’ The other women crowded up.

  ‘Don’t leave us,’ Bella pleaded over Klara’s shoulder.

  Ned looked impatient. ‘De Roncier’s not interested in you. It’s St Clair’s heir he’s after.’

  ‘But he’s murdering them all downstairs!’

  Gwenn stepped forwards. ‘He’s trying to get to my brother, don’t you see? It’s vital we get Philippe out of here.’

  ‘Take us!’

  ‘I want to go!’

  ‘Damn,’ Ned muttered in an undertone. ‘They’d never keep up.’

  ‘Listen, Klara,’ Gwenn said. ‘I can’t stop you following us, if you want to try and escape. But I swear de Roncier won’t harm you. And it would help if you’d stay and put him off the scent.’ Deliberately, she turned her back on the archway and the muttering women, and held out her hand to her sister.

  Katarin stood dumb, thumb filling her mouth.

  ‘She seems to have lost her tongue,’ Gwenn sighed. ‘Send her after me would you, Ned?’

  ‘Perhaps I should go first,’ Ned said. He had estimated the drop to be fifteen, perhaps twenty feet at most. ‘Then I could catch her.’

  A frenzied pounding heralded the beginning of the assault on the solar door. ‘No, Ned. Me first. Then Philippe, I know I can catch him. Then you, and Katarin last. It will reassure her to see her brother go down before her.’

  ‘Aye. I trust the Count would spare her, if he broke in before we got her away.’ Ned shot an agonised glance at the beleaguered door.

  Johanna watched as Gwenn lifted her skirts and swung slim legs over the rim of the shaft. She would never understand why Ned Fletcher had taken a fancy to such a skinny girl. A woman’s thighs should be soft, not firm and muscled like a boy’s. It must be something to do with all that riding the girl did.

  Ned stretched his long length on the floor beside the opening. He grasped Gwenn’s hands. ‘I’ll lower you as far as I can, Gwenn, before I let you go.’

  His brow was puckered with worry for her. He had called her Gwenn. Johanna’s heart ached. And because she couldn’t bear to see the pain on Ned’s face, she occupied herself with swaddling the infant as securely as she could in a coverlet taken from his cradle.

  ‘See you in a minute, Katarin,’ Gwenn said brightly. ‘Goodbye, Johanna.’

  Johanna looked up, ‘God speed, mistress.’

  And then Gwenn’s head ducked out of Johanna’s view, and so, for a moment, did Ned’s. There was a pause while he released Gwenn and strained his eyes after her. Johanna stared longingly at his back.

  ‘Hell, I can’t see her. Where’s that light?’ he demanded, harshly. Johanna slid it across with her foot. Ned cupped his hands to his mouth, ‘Gwenn! Gwenn!’

  A groan. Scuffling. It occurred to Johanna that in all likelihood she would never see Gwenn He
revi again. ‘Sounds like rats,’ she said.

  ‘Gwenn!’ Ned repeated, desperately. ‘Gwenn!’

  ‘I’m down safe.’ Distorted by twenty feet of rock, Gwenn’s answer was hollow, but firm.

  Ned’s brow cleared. ‘She’s safe,’ he said, and smiled at Johanna, expecting her to share his pleasure.

  Johanna might never see him again, either. ‘Aye,’ she said, with a wan smile and bent her head over Philippe. She had left a small portion of the infant’s face showing. Feeling as though her chest would burst, she dropped a farewell kiss on the tiny nose before folding the last corner of the coverlet over his face. He was wrapped as neatly as a butterfly in its cocoon.

  ‘Hand me the babe.’

  Philippe began to squall. Johanna hesitated.

  ‘Hand me the babe.’

  ‘He feels suffocated.’

  ‘It’s only for a moment. Here.’ Striding over, Ned relieved Johanna of her precious burden and set him in the hollow of a looped sheet. He leaned over the shaft. ‘Ready, Gwenn?’

  Back came the hollow answer. ‘Ready.’

  And then Philippe was gone. Johanna’s vision swam.

  ‘Johanna!’ Ned was bending over her, gripping her arm.

  She wiped her face, sniffed. ‘Aye?’

  The battering continued. Ned flung a harried look across the solar. ‘Holy Mother, they’re almost through. Listen, Johanna. It’s my turn. I’m relying on you to send the child after me.’ He was at the head of the shaft.

  ‘I will. No sheet for you, Captain?’

  ‘No time. Besides, you couldn’t bear my weight.’

  Ah, would that I could... He was going. Johanna knew they would never meet again.

  ‘Farewell,’ Ned said over his shoulder, and peered down the pit. ‘All’s well, Gwenn?’

  ‘Aye.’ Her voice was faint.

  ‘Stand aside, I’m coming down!’

  Johanna’s hand fluttered out. ‘Ned?’ He paused, suspended by strong arms over the gap the mason had cut into the stone. He hung like a man halfway between Heaven and Hell. ‘Good luck, Captain.’ And Johanna could not prevent herself from moving towards him. She planted a kiss full on his mouth and received a preoccupied smile of acknowledgement; a crumb that she would treasure for the rest of her life. Ned lowered himself into the unfinished shaft. Johanna could see the metal rivets on the top of his helmet, and his bloodied hands gripping the mouth of the shaft. His fingers moved, and he vanished from her life. She sagged against the wall and put her fingers to her lips where they had touched his.