‘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 Herevi 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.
He had gone, and not a moment too soon. The solar door was giving way. In a trance, Johanna listened to the wood splintering apart and the rasping male voices which were getting louder. Her throat ached as though she’d been throttled. Sucking in a lungful of air, she became of something moving at the boundary of her vision.
‘Katarin!’ He had asked her to send the child down. The child, all eyes, made no answer. Wiping her sleeve across her eyes, Johanna held out her hand. ‘Come along, Katarin.’ The child was sucking her thumb so hard her cheeks were hollow. Johanna hoped she was not going to kick up a fuss. ‘Katarin, Mistress Gwenn’s waiting for you.’
Meekly, the child stepped forward and offered Johanna the hand that was not in her mouth.
‘Good girl,’ Johanna said, much relieved. ‘I’ll have you with your sister in an instant.’ And securing the sheet Gwenn had tied round the child’s waist, Johanna guided her to the privy and eased her through the gap. She lowered her down. And during the whole procedure Katarin said not a single word, not even whimpering when the sheet was stretched to its full length and Johanna released it so Ned could catch her at the bottom.
In the solar the air was heavy with sobbing and Holy Mary’s tireless chanting. Holy Mary was Johanna’s secret name for the serving woman. Mary knelt, dutiful to the last, with her head bowed before the vacant shelf where the statue of Our Lady had rested minutes earlier. The other women knelt in groups around her, clinging to each other as they wept.
Behind the tapestry screening the privy, Johanna felt stifled. She was not afraid as the other women were for she had good reason to believe that she would not be harmed. She did not want to join the other women, but there was something she ought to do...
Taking up the candle, Johanna kicked the other incriminating sheets out of sight down the shaft, and stepped confidently out. The hinges on the solar door would not withstand that relentless hammering many seconds longer. The gap between hinges and wall was widening, the door curving inwards.
Swift as an arrow, Johanna sped for Philippe’s walnut cot. She stripped what was left of the bedding from it and stuffed the baby’s mattress under Gwenn’s bed. Collecting all the infant’s linen and blankets, she rolled them into a ball and ran to the hearth. Raking the ashes into life, she cast the ball of cloth onto the embers and poked it till a warm, golden glow was thrown over the room.
When the glow fell on Holy Mary’s pallid face, the flow of petitions faltered. ‘What are you doing, Johanna?’ she asked in a strained voice. Mary had always struck Johanna as a jumpy, nervous woman. It was a wonder she wasn’t wailing with the other ninnies.