‘If he is able to, I know he will,’ Linnet said. She knew he had gone to the castle. Probably the alarm had not even been raised there yet, and by the time it was it might well be too late. ‘But for now, sweeting, we have to use our own wits.’
‘Mama, why can’t we—?’
‘Hush,’ she admonished quickly, ‘they will hear us!’
They could not see the soldiers’ torchlight but suddenly they could hear their voices in the first cellar and the grate of footsteps on the sandy cave floor.
‘’E don’t have much wine stored down here to say he’s such a busy merchant,’ complained a rough voice. ‘Hold the light closer, Greg, I want to see the mark on this barrel. Hah, Rhenish!’ A glint of greedy pleasure entered the voice and there were various unidentifiable clinking, scraping sounds, followed by the trickle of wine into some sort of vessel. All in the tunnel held their breath. Gytha shielded the light of the lantern beneath her cloak and turned away from the first cellar. Ironheart silently removed his sword from Robert’s hand.
‘You reckon there’s anything upstairs worth a look?’ asked one of the looters between swallows.
‘We’ll investigate in a minute. By Christ’s toes, this is good stuff.’
Footsteps scuffed in the direction of the passageway and Ironheart tightened his hand around the grip of the sword.
‘Hoi, Thomas, look at this. There’s a passage here; bring the torch!’
In the moment while the refugees deliberated between fight and flight, another voice, angry and imperative, filled the first cave.
‘I might have expected you two tosspots to find the wine!’ There came the sound of a blow and a pot smashing on the cave floor. ‘Get upstairs now. The men I sent to de Rocher’s house are all dead and there’s no sign of the old fox or the woman and child. I want them found, is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir. We was only investigating the cave. They could be down here for all we know!’
‘Oh, aye,’ said their captain sarcastically. ‘I presume you were drinking all the barrels dry to make sure they weren’t hiding in them. You must think I was born yesterday and blind. Go on, get out of here and find Simon; he’s coordinating the search parties.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sound of running footsteps retreated and the captain’s voice, softly cursing, followed them, boots crunching upon the shards of broken pottery.
Linnet released her breath and sucked air into her starving lungs. Ironheart groaned and slipped slowly down the wall. His grip loosened on the sword and it clattered sideways. A single blue spark flashed along the edge of the blade and was quenched in semi-darkness. Linnet crouched beside her father-in-law. His eyelids flickered.
‘Go on,’ he croaked. ‘I won’t be able to keep pace with you.’ A wry smile barely curved his lips. ‘I doubt I’m even able to stand up. Fetch help if you can. If not . . . guard yourself. Take my sword. I still have my dagger.’
Linnet bit her lip, considered briefly, then nodded. ‘Give me the lantern,’ she said to Gytha, and when the older woman handed it across she set it down beside the wounded man.
‘Leave me,’ he growled. ‘You have no time.’
‘Time enough to make you comfortable,’ she retorted. ‘I won’t be gainsaid. You saved me once. At least let me redress the balance a little.’
Ironheart snorted. ‘I didn’t save you to indulge in this kind of folly,’ he said but, after a brief attempt to push her hand away, allowed her to have her will.
Linnet raised her skirt and undergown to reach the good linen of her shift. Taking the hem in both hands at the side seam, she tore it upwards and then hard across. The fibres resisted and she had to use her belt knife to finish tearing off a long, wide strip. This she used as wadding and bandage to cover Ironheart’s wound, securing it with her own braid belt. Ironheart’s tougher leather belt she took and bound around her waist, setting her knife in the empty dagger sheath.
‘It will cause you pain but you must press down hard on the bandage to staunch the bleeding,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think you are losing as much blood as you were.’ She picked up the lantern from his side and returned to the first cave, picking her way over the shards of broken pottery and the dark glimmer of splattered wine. There was a small ledge carved into the wall and on it stood two more pitchers of a similar design to the one that lay in pieces on the floor. Lifting one down, she filled it from the broached keg and brought it to Ironheart, setting it down at his good side.
He regarded her with grim amusement. ‘What’s this for, to drown my sorrows?’
‘To dull the pain and replace the blood you have lost,’ she replied, her tone sharp.
Ironheart hefted the pitcher and took a shaky gulp of the wine from the cracked rim. ‘Waes hael,’ he toasted with irony. ‘Go on, wench, get you gone. There’s nothing to be gained in watching a drunkard die.’
Linnet blinked hard. ‘Get as drunk as you want,’ she said, ‘but don’t you dare die!’ Bending over him, she kissed his cheek fiercely then straightened and gestured brusquely at Gytha to lead on.
Ironheart watched their small light disappear in the direction of the third cellar and raised the pitcher to his lips again. He was indeed inordinately thirsty. He was tired, too, and could feel the chill of the cave floor seeping up through his bones. How long did it take to die? He closed his eyes, then remembered he was supposed to drink the wine. The pitcher was so heavy. He raised it, swallowed, choked, swallowed, lowered his aching arm.
The meat store in the fourth cellar had a fatty, strong aroma, and this despite the cool temperature of the sandstone vaulting. Linnet’s stomach churned and fluid filled her mouth so that she had to turn aside to spit. Gytha’s wavering candle illuminated the boarded-up hole, the source of the dispute between Ironheart and his neighbours.
‘We need something to prise off these planks,’ said Gytha. ‘It ain’t safe down here. They’ll be down after us soon enough, the scavenging vultures. My poor Jonas . . .’ Her double chins quivered.
‘Gytha, I’m sorry—’ Linnet began, knowing that whatever she said would be inadequate, but the older woman cut her off short.
‘Nay, Mistress Linnet, it is kind of you to offer comfort, but it ain’t much use. It’ll not bring him back, will it?’ Gytha compressed her lips. ‘He’s dead. It’s our own lives we must save.’
Linnet bit her lip and nodded, recognizing the older woman’s brusqueness as a bulwark against the onset of grief. On a stone slab jutting from the wall lay the carcasses of two skinned sheep and she had to swallow several times before she could speak. ‘We could try the sword,’ she suggested.
‘You will break the blade, my lady.’
‘I don’t think so, not if we put the hilt under like this.’ She lodged the pommel, which was shaped like a flattened fist, beneath one of the wooden planks and pushed downwards. For a moment nothing happened. Linnet raised her foot and braced it against another strut for more leverage. With a loud creak and then a sudden splintering sound, one of the holding nails flew out of the wood and tinkled on the ground. Gytha took hold of the loosened plank in her strong laundry pummeler’s hands and ripped it away from the hole.
‘It’s mortal narrow,’ she pronounced, peering dubiously through and running her hands over her ample curves.
Linnet loosened some more boards and Gytha and Ella pulled them free. The women held the lantern up to the hole and saw that it led through into a dusty cellar full of bundles of rushes and withies, woven baskets and trugs, some completed, some half-finished and beyond them, stairs leading up to a shadowed doorway.