‘No madder than whatever else we may do to break this dam,’ said Hugh when he had listened and considered. ‘If you put some trust in it, I’ll go with you. Can he really creep in there, do you think? Is it possible?’
‘I’ve seen him tie himself in a knot a serpent might be proud of,’ said Cadfael, ‘and if he says there’s room enough there for him to pass, I say he’s the better judge of that than I. It’s his profession, he takes pride in it. Yes, I put my trust in him.’
‘We’ll send to fetch him his rope, and a chisel, too, to pry loose the slats, but he must wait for them. We’ll make good certain they stay wakeful and watchful at this end, and try a feint or two, if need be, short of driving them to panic. And let him take his time, for I think we might be advised to wait for the first light, to give Alcher a clear view of that hatch and whatever body fills it, and a shaft fitted and aimed in case of need. If we must let a decent poor lad risk his life, at least we’ll stand ready with all the cover we can give him.’
‘I had rather,’ said Cadfael sadly, ‘there should be no killing at all.’
‘So would I,’ agreed Hugh grimly, ‘but if there must be, rather the guilty than the innocent.’
The dawn was still more than an hour and a half away when they brought the rope Liliwin needed, but already the eastern sky had changed, turned from deepest blue to paler blue-green, and a faint line of green paler still outlined the curves of the fields behind them, and the towered hill of the town.
‘Rather round my waist than my neck,’ whispered Liliwin hardily, as Cadfael fastened the rope about him among the bushes.
‘There, I see you have the true spirit in you. God keep you, the pair of you! But can she come down the rope, even if you reach her? Girls are not such acrobats as you.’
‘I can guide her. She’s so light and small, she can hold by the rope and walk backwards down the wall... Only keep them busy there at the far end.’
‘But go slowly and quietly, no haste,’ cautioned Cadfael, anxious as for a son going into battle. ‘I shall be running messenger between. And daylight will be on our side, not on theirs.’
Liliwin kicked off his shoes. He had holes in the toes of both feet of his hose, Cadfael saw. Perhaps none the worse for this enterprise, but when he came to be sent out into the world - God so willing, as surely God must - he must go better provided.
The boy slid silently down from the headland to the foot of the stable wall, felt with stretched arms above his head, found grips a heavier man would never have considered, set a toe to a first hold, and drew himself up like a squirrel on to the timbers.
Cadfael waited and watched until he had seen the rope slipped through the firmest boards of the lattice and made fast, and the first rotten slat prised free, slowly and carefully, and let fall silently at arm’s-length into the thick grass below. More than half an hour had passed by then. From time to time he caught the sound of voices in weary but alert exchanges to eastward. The criss-cross of boards at the air-vent showed perceptibly now. The removal of one board had uncovered a space big enough to let a cat in and out, but surely nothing larger or less agile. The vault of the sky lightened very gradually before there was any visible source of light.
Liliwin worked with a bight of the tethered rope fast round him, and half-naked toes braced into the timbers of the wall. He had begun patiently prising loose the second slat, when Cadfael made his way back in cover to report what he knew.
‘God knows it looks impossible, but the lad knows his business, and if he is sure he can pass, as a cat knows by its whiskers, then I take his word for it. But for God’s sake keep this parley alive.’
‘Take it over for me,’ said Hugh, drawing back with eyes still fixed on the hatch. ‘Only some few moments... A fresh voice causes them to prick their ears afresh.’
Cadfael took up the vain pleas he had used before. The voice that answered him was hoarse with weariness, but still defiant.
‘We shall not go from here,’ said Cadfael, roused out of his own weariness by a double anxiety, ‘until all these troubled here, body and soul, have freedom and quiet, whether in this world or another. And who so prevents to the last, on him the judgement fall! Nevertheless, God’s mercy is infinite to those who seek it, However late, however feebly.’
‘The light will not be long,’ Hugh was saying at that same moment to Alcher, who was the finest marksman in the castle garrison, and had long since chosen his ground with the dawn in view, and found no reason to change it. ‘Be ready, the instant I shall call, to put an arrow clean into that hatch, and through whoever lurks there. But no shooting unless I do call. And pray God I am not forced to it.’
‘That’s understood,’ said Alcher, nursing his strung bow and fitted shaft, and never shifting his eyes from their aim, dead-centre of the dark opening, now growing clearly visible above the stable doors.
When Cadfael again made his way along the headland, the lattice was a lattice no longer, but a small square opening under the eaves, and the dislodged slats lay cushioned in the thick grass below. Liliwin had one arm stretched within, to ease aside the hay cautiously, with as little sound as possible, and make room to creep within. Now if only Rannilt could keep from starting or crying out when she found herself approached thus from behind! It was high time to make as much and as menacing ado before the stable doors as possible. Yet Cadfael could not help standing with held breath to watch, until Liliwin slid head and shoulders through the space that seemed barely passable even for his slenderness, and drew the rest of himself after in one coiling, rapid movement, vanishing in a smooth somersault, and without a sound.
Cadfael made his way back in haste to a point still out of sight from the hatch, and signalled urgently to Hugh that the time of greatest danger was come. Alcher saw the waving arm before Hugh did, and drew his bow halfway to the ear, narrowing his eyes upon the moving blurs of drab brown coat and paler face that showed as his target. Behind him the sun was just showing a rim over the horizon, and its first ray gleamed along the ridge of the roof. In a quarter of an hour it would be high enough for the light to reach the hatch, and the shot would be an easy matter.
‘Iestyn,’ called Hugh sharply, mustering those of his men nearest him into plain sight, though not too near to the doors, ‘you have had a night’s grace to consider, now show decent sense, and come forth of your own will, for you see you cannot escape us, and you are mortal like others, and must eat to live. You are not in sanctuary there, there are no forty days of respite for you.’
‘There’s nothing but a halter for us,’ shouted Iestyn savagely, ‘and well we know it. But if that’s our end, I swear to you the girl shall go before us, and her blood be on your head.’
‘So you say, big talk from a small man! Your woman may not be so ready either to kill or to die. Have you asked her? Or have you the only voice in the matter? Here, master goldsmith,’ called Hugh, beckoning, ‘come and speak to your daughter. However late in the day, she may still listen to you.’
He was bidding to sting her, to bring them both flying to the hatch to spit their joint defiance and leave their prisoner unwatched. But oh, not too fast, not too fast, prayed Cadfael, gnawing his knuckles on the headland. The boy needs a few more minutes yet
Liliwin tunnelled stealthily through the stored hay, as much in terror of sneezing, as the odorous dust tickled his nostrils, as he was of making too audible a rustling and betraying himself all too soon. Somewhere before him, very close now, he could hear the faint stirrings Rannilt made in her nest, and prayed that they would cover whatever sound he was making. After a while, pausing to peer through the thinning screen, he caught the shape of her shrinking shoulders and head against the dim morning light. Carefully he enlarged the passage he had hollowed out, so that he might have room to draw to one side of her, and have her creep past him, to come first to the frame of the lattice. Iestyn was leaning out at the far end of the loft, shouting angry curses now at those without, threatening still but not looking this way.