Castle of Dreams

by Speer, Flora

  When Meredith and Branwen were ready to leave Afoncaer the next noonday, Joan brought them clothes that could pass for those of any serving woman in Isabel’s employ and handed each of them a well-wrapped package of food.

  “I wish you luck. I will pray for you,” Joan whispered, and walked away quickly before Meredith could say anything. She was certain now that Joan knew what they were going to do, and equally sure Joan would say not one word to Guy about it.

  Meredith said her farewell to Guy, wishing she could tell him the truth yet knowing it was impossible for his own sake.

  “It is better for you to leave,” he agreed. “I have several times been perilously close to breaking our resolution. If I continue to see you every day it won’t be long before I forget all caution and take you to bed again. You will be safer away from me.”

  “But not happier,” she said. “Still, Branwen and I have work to do.”

  He kissed her cheek, then left her to join Brian and Reynaud by the fire to discuss what Brian would say to Walter. Meredith, her eyes full of tears, headed for the door where Branwen was waiting. She bumped into Geoffrey on the way.

  “I’m going to Tÿnant, too,” the squire announced, tilting his head toward the men. His honest brown face broke into a great smile. “Sir Guy said I was intelligent and trustworthy and that I should go as Sir Brian’s aide.”

  “I’m happy for you, Geoffrey.” He was fond of Thomas. Meredith knew he would do his best to help Brian. She watched him join the other men in deep consultation. With an odd combination of fear and excitement knotting her stomach, she joined Branwen.

  “What do you suppose Brian will have to say to me that Reynaud did not?” Walter fitz Alan dismissed the messenger who had come from Afoncaer and moved to stand behind Isabel as she bent over her embroidery. Late afternoon sun streamed through the windows of the solar, lighting the gold threads in her coif. Walter’s fingers stroked seductively across the nape of her neck, under the sheer veil, and then strayed below the neckline at the back of her gown.

  “Perhaps he is finally ready to give up Afoncaer,” Isabel said. “I am sure it will be soon, Walter.”

  Still his fingers teased along her neck and upper back, rubbing softly down her spine. She wished he wouldn’t do that in front of her women. Alice kept her eyes primly on her own needlework, but Margaret, newly promoted from kitchen wench to assist Alice in caring for Isabel’s wardrobe, was watching Walter with laughter in her bright eyes. Another moment and the silly girl would break into giggles. Walter fitz Alan’s most unseemly passion for his beautiful wife was the talk of Tynant.

  What the gossips did not know was that Isabel’s own desires, by now thoroughly awakened after being carefully suppressed for so many years, fully matched, and sometimes even surpassed, her husband’s.

  His fingers continued their motion, steadily, insistently. Isabel felt the moistness between her thighs, felt the heat rising from her belly to her breasts. She knew Walter sensed it. He removed his hand from her back and held it out to her.

  “Come,” he said.

  Isabel laid down her embroidery and rose, pretending not to see the stares of her women. She followed Walter out of the solar and across a narrow hall to their private chamber.

  Walter bolted the door and swept her into his arms, his mouth hot on hers. She felt his hard arousal. He was always like this, always ready for her, whatever the hour of day or night. He was insatiable and she loved it, loved his wild, sometimes violent passion, a passion that more than made up for all the empty years when she had lived like a nun and had never known what ecstatic release a man could give a woman. She moved against him, groaning. His face was buried in her neck.

  “Guy has to give into us soon,” she murmured, pulling up his long indoor robe. “This can’t go on much longer. And then you will be Baron of Afoncaer.”

  “If I am not,” Walter said, lifting his face from her throat so she could finish removing his robe, “I’ll send his nephew to him, piece by little piece.”

  “My darling, you know you don’t mean that.”

  “Do I not?” He shrugged his arms out of the sleeves, smiling. Something in his dark face frightened her. “You gave the boy into my keeping, Isabel. I will do what I want with him.”

  Walter stepped away from her and quickly finished undressing. Isabel stood uncertainly, holding his robe against her bosom, breathing in the exciting scent of Walter that rose from it, her blood pounding in her ears with desire for him.

  “You would not harm Thomas.” It was a breathless plea.

  “You care nothing for him, Isabel. You never have.” Walter stretched out on the bed, his manhood erect, ready and waiting for her. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. He lifted one hand, inviting her to join him. “You are slow today, Isabel. Take off your gown.”

  “Promise me you won’t harm Thomas.”

  “I will do what I have to do.” He watched her face. “Come, Isabel, don’t look like that. We have guessed aright. Guy will give up the castle to save Thomas, so there’s no need to discuss it, is there?” He fixed his eyes on her, and slowly Isabel laid down his robe and began to take off her own clothes. Coif first, then gown and underdress, fine linen shift and shoes, then one stocking. She was a little afraid of him after his cruel remarks about Thomas. His words ought to have chilled her passion. Instead….

  “You are too slow. I want you now.” Walter was off the bed, coming toward her. “You delight in teasing me, woman, in making me wait.”

  She had one leg up on a stool, removing the ribbon that fastened her second stocking. He tore the ribbon out of her fingers and stripped off the stocking.

  “Walter!” She was crushed in his passionate embrace, his long naked body assaulting hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth again and again and again in a wildly suggestive rhythm. Her fingers raked across his bare shoulders as he thrust himself at her. She cried out, her knees giving way under this onslaught.

  He picked her up and carried her to the bed. He tossed her into the middle of it and threw himself on top of her, taking her in a paroxysm of unleashed passion that went on and on, leaving her gasping and crying and, finally, limp and drained and utterly, completely, satisfied.

  Later, when he had left her to attend to some business with his captain of the guard, she lay, still naked, on her marriage bed and worried. Walter loved her; he would do anything for her. Surely he would spare Thomas for her sake if she begged him. But it would not come to that. It would not. Guy would give up Afoncaer. He had to. Nothing would happen to Thomas. But the doubt was there, lurking in her mind, nagging at her, spoiling her sense of power and her expectation of triumph. She no longer trusted Walter completely. She needed him for her plan, she desired him and knew he loved her, but she did not, could not, trust him.

  Chapter 29

  Meredith and Branwen were up at first light. They began their long walk even before dawn had gilded the treetops. Branwen had explained the night before what they must do, drawing pictures on the cave floor to show the plan of the old portion of the manor house, as she remembered it.

  “There is a tunnel running from the forest underneath the house,” Branwen explained.

  They walked until midday, pausing only occasionally to rest or drink from a stream. As they walked, Meredith went over and over in her mind the arrangement of the house.

  “There,” Branwen said at last, pulling back a clump of saplings so Meredith could look down into an open meadow. “That is the place. How it has grown. It used to be just a peaceful farmhouse, but now there are so many armed men. And that log palisade is much larger and higher than my uncle’s once was. If Walter Fitz Alan lives there much longer, it will become a fortress.”

  “He doesn’t plan to live there long,” Meredith reminded her. “He wants Afoncaer.”

  “He won’t get it,” Branwen said, chuckling, “and he won’t live long, either. Not once we have Thomas safe. Then Brian and Sir Guy will make Walter pay for kidnapping Tho
mas, and for killing Rhys, and for anything else he’s done that he shouldn’t have. Come with me now, I want to find the tunnel entrance. I remember well where it is, but we should make certain the tunnel is open all the way to the house.”

  It was. It was low, and they had to stoop in places as they walked through it, but it had been well built, with timbers to shore it up. They examined every foot of the way, using the candles Brian had supplied them. In only one area, where the earthen wall had recently crumbled half-way across the tunnel floor, was the going difficult, and there was no lack of fresh air.

  “Someone has been using this passage,” Meredith said. “Look here, these timbers are almost new.”

  “Aye.” Branwen laughed softly, testing the low, square door at the tunnel’s end. “I’ll wager Sir Walter has been losing stores and has no idea where they’ve gone. The last tenant may have had the same problem. These hinges are well oiled.”

  “You mean in spite of all the guards posted outside the local people sneak in here and steal from Sir Walter?”

  “Why not? He surely steals from them, so it’s only fair. Let’s go back to the entrance and wait there until it’s time to enter the house.”

  As the sun approached midday the two women ate a little bread and cheese from the packets Joan had given them and drank from a nearby stream. In early afternoon they crept back to their original vantage point to see the men from Afoncaer arrive. They waited impatiently as the sun slanted lower.

  “Where can they be? They are late.” Meredith was growing more frightened with each minute that passed. If something had happened to prevent Brian’s coming, if Guy had changed his mind and now refused to let him try to talk to Walter, then she and Branwen would have to make the attempt to rescue Thomas on their own, with no hope of assistance if they were discovered. It would be growing dark soon. Meredith moved restlessly.

  “There they are.” Branwen touched her arm and pointed.

  Brian, Geoffrey, and six men-at-arms came down the road from Afoncaer at a steady canter and drew up by the manor gate. After a long wait, which they appeared to endure patiently, and after leaving their weapons with the gatekeeper, the men were admitted to Tynant.

  “Now we can begin.” Branwen led the way as she and Meredith returned to the tunnel entrance, lit their candles once more, and made their way through the tunnel.

  When Branwen pulled open the wooden door at the tunnel’s end the draft blew out their lights. They stood in the dark until Meredith struck a flint and relit her candle so they could see where they were.

  They had come out into a large underground storeroom. The door through which they had entered was half hidden behind barrels of wine and kegs of ale. Once closed it was indistinguishable from the rest of the rough wood planks that paneled the earth walls, until Branwen pointed out the corner neatly planed off one board.

  “Remember this, Meredith, in case you have to find it again by yourself.”

  Branwen led the way across the room to a door in the opposite wall. Then, while Meredith sheltered the candle flame with her hand, Branwen carefully opened the door. They could just make out a short passage with a wooden staircase at the far end.

  “This part of the house is unchanged,” Branwen said, gesturing toward several doors along the passage. “Those are more storage rooms, and that last door, under the stairs, is where prisoners were kept when I was a girl. It’s the first place we should look for Thomas.”

  “Won’t there be a guard?” Meredith whispered fearfully. Her heart was pounding hard and her palms were wet. She hoped she wouldn’t drop the candle she was carrying. She tried to keep it steady as Branwen hurried to the cell door and pushed it open.

  “Hold the light in here, Meredith. I want to be certain. Just as I thought, he’s elsewhere. If Thomas were here, there would have been a guard, as you guessed.”

  “Now we must look upstairs?” In spite of her best efforts, Meredith’s whisper was more of a croak. She nervously adjusted her head scarf with her free hand. A sound at the stairs above her made her jump. “Aunt Branwen, someone is coming.”

  “In here. Quickly.” Branwen pushed her niece through a door into one of the storage rooms. The rich scent of ripe apples filled her nose and lungs. Baskets and baskets of them were lined up in neat rows on one side of the room, gleaming red and pale green in the light of Meredith’s single candle.

  “Hold that candle higher so I can see better,” Branwen’s soft voice was remarkably calm. She picked up a small, flat basket from the floor and began to put apples into it. “If anyone comes in here, we are helping the cook. Let me talk.” She added a few more apples to the basket, cocking her head as footsteps sounded outside the storeroom door. The door was flung open with such force that Meredith smothered a scream and nearly dropped the candle.

  “Kitchen wenches!” An elderly man in servant’s garb glared at them in open disappointment, a short knife gleaming in his thick fist. “I thought ye’d be some o’ that Sir Guy’s men, what came to talk again. I wuz goin’ tae puncture ye.” The man laughed, showing broken, yellow teeth. “Ye be careful, wenches, or they’ll puncture you in another way.” He laughed lewdly at his own joke, gesturing toward the ceiling with his knife. “They be dangerous men.”

  “Are they talkin’ to Sir Walter?” Branwen asked, matching her accent to the man’s. “Will he let the boy go, d’you think?”

  “Ha, not he. He wants Afoncaer for heself, and Afoncaer he’ll get, or die tryin’. He’s tough as a piece o’ old oxhide, Sir Walter is.”

  Branwen finished piling apples into her basket. She looked at the last one in her hand.

  “I’ll wager the boy would like one of these,” she said. She tossed the apple to the man, who caught it, grinning, and bit into it. “I’ve not seen young Thomas,” Branwen added.

  “Seen ‘im? No one has, ‘cept for that skinny servin’ wench Alice, and she won’t talk. And his mother and Sir Walter, o’ course. Locked up next to their private chamber, he is. Private chamber! Ye’d think that Lady Isabel was at the king’s bloody royal court. So dainty! Washes her hands before eatin’, she does, and him, too, and hot water for baths every day. My back is near broke, carryin’ buckets up those steps to their private chamber. Are ye done in here, wenches? I have orders to be sure there’s no one in the basement.”

  “I think that’s all we’ll need for now,” Branwen replied calmly. She nodded at Meredith. “Come along, girl.” Meredith followed her out of the storeroom and up the stairs to the first floor of Sir Walter’s manor house, the old servant close behind her.

  There was a guard by the door at the top of the steps. He glowered at them suspiciously as Meredith extinguished her candle and hid it in the pouch that hung from the waistband of her apron.

  “I didn’t see you two go down there,” the guard said, raising one hand to stop them.

  “Ye must be growin’ addled, Roger,” cackled the old fellow behind Meredith. “How could ye miss two pretty wenches and not follow them into the cellar to pluck a little fruit? I got mine, I did,” and he plunked the well-chewed core of the apple Branwen had given him into the guard’s outstretched hand. He scurried off, dodging when Roger threw the unsavory morsel at him, and disappeared around a tall screen into the great hall.

  While Roger’s attention was distracted, Meredith had looked around and found the kitchen. Pointing silently, she led Branwen into the hot, crowded room, where two cooks directed an assortment of servants and pages, who bumped into each other as they picked up platters and bowls and carried them toward the great hall to serve the feast Sir Walter had ordered for his guests. Sir Brian, it seemed, would be well fed before negotiations began between him and Sir Walter.

  “Here, give this to the cook.” Branwen thrust the basket of apples she had been carrying into the empty arms of an astonished page just returning from the great hall. “Meredith, take a dish. That one. That looks like food for the common folk at the lower tables.”

  Meredith picked
up the platter, which contained a mound of chopped meat and vegetables, and followed Branwen, who carried a wide wooden bowl of steaming cabbage, back through the screens passage, past the guard Roger, and into the great hall.

  “Turn your face away from the high table, you don’t want to be recognized,” Branwen hissed over her shoulder. “After you put down the platter, follow me.”

  Meredith stole a quick look at the dais at the far end of the room. Sir Walter sat there at the head table with Brian at his right hand and Lady Isabel, resplendent in expensive gold brocade from Byzantium, on his left. Next to Isabel was Father Herbert. They all had silver plates and spoons.

  Below the dais Meredith saw Geoffrey sitting at one of the lower tables. She bent her head to keep her face hidden and concentrated on spooning the stew she carried onto the hollowed-out slices of four-day-old bread that the common folk used for plates. When the serving platter was empty she gave it to a page who was returning to the kitchen with his own empty platter, and then she looked for Branwen.

  She saw her aunt moving casually along between one of the banqueting tables and the wall, heading toward that end of the room where the dais was. Meredith knew, from Branwen’s description of the house and the information they had just learned on Thomas’s whereabouts, that they would have to get past the high table and behind it in order to reach the short staircase leading to the lord’s private quarters. Once there they would have to find Thomas, free him, and, assuming he could travel, somehow get him to the cellars and thence to the secret tunnel.

  Only now, in the midst of their enterprise, did Meredith realize just how mad it was. How could they have imagined they could smuggle Thomas out through the great hall filled with banqueters, most of whom were Sir Walter’s armed guards? She looked around at all the eating, drinking, laughing men, and knew she and Branwen would never succeed. She gasped as her eyes met Geoffrey’s startled glance, and then she saw Brian looking straight at her. He looked away at once and said something to Sir Walter and Lady Isabel that drew their attention to himself. Meredith, recognizing through her mounting panic that Brian was giving her an opportunity to reach her destination unnoticed, hurried along the side wall of the hall, past the dais and into the tiny antechamber behind it. There was no guard here. Everyone was either eating or watching Sir Brian’s men, who were all in the great hall.