If Gwenn was rigid with fear, Katarin had slipped into another world altogether. The little girl’s sixth sense had informed her that today was going to be worse than the day her mother had died. Afraid that Gwenn might be stolen from her too, she had crept after her. The women upstairs had tried to restrain her, but Katarin had wanted Gwenn, no other would do. Katarin wound her arms tight as bindweed about her sister’s narrow waist.
Ned fought his way to the fire. ‘Sir Jean! I’m with you!’
Jean grunted acknowledgement. Both he and his brother had a crimson-tipped sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. They were fighting like Saracens, but it was only a matter of time before one of them went down.
‘Get out, Ned!’ Jean gasped between strokes.
‘Sir?’ Ned shouldered an iron candlestand onto one of de Roncier’s company, and found himself smiling when the man backed onto Denis the Red’s blade.
Jean jerked his head at the stairwell. ‘Gwenn...’
Ned’s heart missed a beat, for Gwenn had not gone up as she had promised. She and her sister were kneeling, and Gwenn was staring straight at them, watching them like a frightened rabbit watches the hound that is about to tear it limb from limb.
‘Get her out!’ Jean yelled. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his brown eyes. ‘Get them upstairs!’
De Roncier lunged, and a thin ruby line sprang across St Clair’s lean cheek. The blood mingled with his perspiration.
Clashing swords with a de Roncier henchman, Ned saw another drop to his knees. Waldin was giving a good account of himself.
‘To me!’ François de Roncier bellowed. ‘To me!’ And two more of his company sprang out of nowhere like dragon’s teeth in the ancient fable. Both these men were confident enough to be grinning, and one of them had been causing havoc with an axe. He was no stranger to Ned.
Ned gulped. ‘Malait!’
Recognition flared in the cool Nordic eyes and, astonishingly, the flailing axe paused. ‘Greetings – Fletcher, isn’t it? You switched horses once. I take it you’re not of a mind to do it again?’
The only response was a deft twist of Ned’s wrist, a trick Waldin had taught him. It sent Ned’s blade slicing through the air and wiped the smirk from the Viking’s lips. To save his nose, Otto leapt backwards and, slipping in some blood, went sprawling.
‘Fletcher!’ Jean roared. ‘Run, damn you!’ Breathing hard, he punctuated his words with wide, sweeping sword strokes. ‘God curse you...I’m commanding you... Run! Take Gwenn, and run.’
‘Wh...where?’
‘The woods. Christ’s wounds, anywhere but here! Do what you have to, but keep Gwenn and the children safe.’ Never had Ned received an order more to his liking, but he hesitated, and a razor-sharp blade whistled past his ear. ‘Well? Do you obey me?’
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.’