It was dark now. I sat very still listening. A strange scuttle on the stairs. It would be mice perhaps. Or rats. I shivered. Rats who had secreted themselves in some of the bales. They always left the sinking ship though.
One imagines noises. That sounded like a step on the stairs. Could it be the ghost of Nonna? She had given way to her curiosity and died soon after. Died because of it. Nonna had been murdered. She was the unwanted wife. If that long dead Casvellyn had been satisfied with his wife, why should he have set up Ysella in her Tower?
It was a crazy story. It did not make sense. How would it have been possible to keep two wives in the same castle and one not know of the other’s existence?
The wind was rising. How clearly I could hear the sound of the sea. It was washing now about the foundations of the castle; it was completely covering the Devil’s Teeth. Somewhere out to sea a ship might be in distress. And Colum would be watching so that he and his men might go out and profit from it.
I hated this. Yet my father had been a pirate. He had thought it right to rob the Spanish galleons who crossed his path. How many times had he sailed home, the hold of his ship crammed with treasure—filched from the Spaniards.
My mother said it was robbery. “You are a brigand,” she had told him, “a pirate.”
And the answer: “This is an age of pirates.”
How dark it was. How the wind buffeted the great walls of the castle. And then the lull and the silence which was more frightening than the noise of the wind. The sudden noise from above. What was it—some rat or mouse … or the footfall of one who was dead and could not rest?
I am fanciful, I know it. I do imagine things. I kept staring into the gloom expecting at any moment to see the ghostly figure on the stairs. Nonna walking slowly, coming towards me, a terrible coldness enveloping me as I am close to the dead and Nonna whispering: “I warn you. I have come back to warn you.”
It was imagination. There was nothing … only the dark hall with the shapes I could see as my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom.
What time is it? I wondered. How long had I been here?
Long enough for them to miss me.
I am going to spend the night in Ysella’s Tower, I thought. I remembered how many times I had wished to look inside. Well, now I had, and here I was, a prisoner.
I was trembling. I was certain I was not alone in the tower. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. What had Nonna felt when she knew that her husband had a mistress whom he kept in this tower? I could picture her bewildered grief. And then she had died. Had she died of her own will or was she helped to her death?
I wondered how long I had been in the tower. It must be two hours. It had been about three o’clock when I came. Now it must be five. They would have missed me by now. I was sure of it.
If only I had a light. If only I could find a candle. I would set it in one of the windows. What of the serving-girl who had seen me on the ramparts? Had she not gone back to her fellow servants and told them what she had seen? They would laugh at her. How many times had one of the servants sworn she had seen the ghost of Ysella’s Tower?
Perhaps I should go up to the ramparts. Someone might come into the courtyard. If I shouted someone might hear me in time.
I stood up. The fearsome eerieness wrapped itself about me. I almost fell over a bale which I had not noticed. Its sea-damp odour swept up as I touched it.
My footsteps echoed hollowly on the stone flags as I groped my way to the gallery and found the spiral staircase. I could feel the rope and I grasped it.
I really felt terror going up that staircase. I was overcome by an awful presentiment that something malignant was waiting for me at the turn. Still I went on. I had to get out of this place and I had more chance from the ramparts. If I shouted, there was a faint chance that someone might hear me, for they would surely begin to look for me when they found me missing.
I must surely be nearly at the top of the staircase. I seemed to have come a long way. I touched the wall—it was cold and clammy. I turned. The staircase was less curved than it had been. Gingerly I felt my way, taking care not to lift one foot from the stone before I was sure the other was firm.
I could feel the cold air from the ramparts and then suddenly my heart leaped in terror, for a flash of light illuminated the scene and came to rest on the hideous face of a gargoyle carved in the stone. He leered at me in the sudden light and I gave a scream as I fell backwards.
I could not have fallen far though because the turn of the staircase stopped that. I lay inert on the stone staircase and I felt consciousness slipping away from me.
Noises everywhere—voices. I was lifted in a pair of strong arms.
“Colum,” I said.
He said: “It’s all right. You’re safe.”
I knew I was in Ysella’s Tower because of the smell. It was everywhere. It was light now because there were several men and they all carried lanterns.
Colum brought me down the staircase to the hall. It looked different now with so many lanterns to light it up.
He said: “I’ll carry my wife. She cannot walk, I think. She has hurt her ankle.”
Two of the men went ahead, their lanterns lighting our way. I was aware then of the darting pain in my ankle.
I was taken up to our room and Jennet was sent up to me. She took off my clothes and wrapped me in a warm gown. Then she drew the curtains about my bed. Some of the women came up—those who were specially skilled with herbs and such like. One of them examined my foot and put a paste of herbs on it and wrapped it up tightly.
I must not stand on it, I was told.
So I lay there, thinking of Ysella’s Tower and I went on living those moments as I had mounted the stairs. Then I was given a posset to make me sleep and I did.
I did not see Colum next morning. I remained in my bed for it was painful to walk and it was dusk when Colum came in to our bedchamber. I still lay on my bed.
He drew the curtains back and looked at me lying there.
“Now I wish to know what you were doing in Ysella’s Tower,” he said.
“I found the door open and looked in.”
He leaned over me. His eyes were narrowed. He looked cruel. “You have been told not to go there.”
“The door was open. I saw no harm in looking in.”
“Yes,” he said, “that has been taken care of.”
“What?” I asked.
“He who left open the door has been punished.”
“Punished. How?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“It was my fault for going in.”
“It was indeed,” he said. “You knew you had no right.”
“I saw no harm,” I retorted. “I wanted to know what was in there.”
“If I had wanted you to know would I not have told you?”
“If it had been something of little importance you would have told me. As you did not I knew it was significant.”
“I expect you to obey me. Has it ever occurred to you what could happen if you angered me?”
“You could kill me, I suppose, as your ancestor killed his wife Nonna.”
There was a silence in the room. He did not move; he stood like a stone statue, his arms folded.
Then he said slowly: “Do not provoke me. You have yet to learn that I can be an angry man.”
“I know it well. I have seen something of your rages.”
“You have seen nothing yet.”
I had a feeling then that I did not know him. He was a stranger to me though he was the father of my children. I felt that he had worn a mask and that it was slowly slipping from his face.
I was not afraid of him, strangely enough. I knew that his rage could be terrible; I had lost sight of the man who had stormed into the inn, who had taken me to his Castle. I had forgotten that man in the gratified husband, who was so delighted with his son. But he was still there.