Paralyzing excitement swept through Mary. And with it came fear.
It would be the biggest gamble of her life, and she knew it well. Even if Stephen had not left Alnwick already, she could not ask him for his permission. He would not believe her sincere, he would suspect treachery again. Therefore she would have to leave Alnwick without his permission and without his knowledge.
Mary did not want to think about what might happen if she left Alnwick and went to Malcolm but failed to convince him to turn his armies around. It was far too frightening.
This time I must be mad, she managed to think as she planned her escape, for who am I to avert a war between two great houses? But she could not live with herself if she did not try. She yearned for peace as she had never before. Peace in the land, and peace between her and Stephen.
When Mary slid from the bed and dressed, Stephen and all the de Warenne men were gone. Mary had been awakened by their departure that dawn. Once again, it had been obvious that the assembled men were leaving to make war. This time, though, their numbers were few—many men-at-arms were being left behind. To defend Alnwick? Mary knew that there could be no other explanation. Yet she was disbelieving. Did the earl and Stephen think a siege even remotely possible? Yet they must, to leave the keep well guarded by some twoscore men.
Mary was horrified. Not because of cowardice, but because she was finding it difficult to imagine her father laying siege to the fortress belonging to her husband, especially with his own daughter a resident there.
She must not think of such a dismaying event. Instead, Mary’s quick mind surmised that if Stephen had left so quickly, riders must have been sent out the night before to summon the vassals to war. Which meant that Malcolm’s invasion was imminent, as Henry had said, and that Mary had no time to lose.
Henry had continued on to Carlisle as planned. Now Mary understood his real intentions—which were not to relieve the troops there but to reinforce them and prepare for battle. How could Malcolm really think to beat such an army? Why could he not put his great determination to the cause of peace instead of war?
More foreboding settled over Mary. She turned her thoughts to the task at hand. Mary quickly decided to disguise herself as a peasant boy, boldly leave the keep, and in the village steal a donkey or a horse if she could find one. As a young lad, she would have far less trouble traveling alone. And as soon as it was safe, she would reveal herself and gain both a good horse and a Scottish escort.
Alnwick was in a hive of activity when Mary descended the stairs and entered the Great Hall. It was the kind of activity that heightened Mary’s fears and strengthened her resoive—preparations were madly under way for the event of a siege. So not only had the earl left many valuable knights behind to defend the keep, he had ordered it to prepare itself for the worst. Mary shuddered. As far as she knew, Alnwick was impenetrable. Yet the earl was both a seasoned military commander and a brilliant strategist. Obviously the kind of war that threatened now was on a scale that Mary had never in her lifetime witnessed.
Breathless, knowing she must somehow succeed in deterring Malcolm from his path, Mary hoped to hurry through the hall and outside without being noticed, surely a feat easily accomplished due to the hubbub within. But the countess saw her immediately and hailed her over.
Hiding her reluctance, Mary obeyed the summons.
“I am glad you are up so early; there is much to be done,” Lady Ceidre said, not mincing words. “I will put you in charge of gathering all we shall need for the wounded. If there is a siege, there will be many casualties.” Quickly the countess rattled off a list of supplies to be brought into the keep itself.
Mary listened and nodded, knowing she was not going to compile clean linens and moldy bread or anything else, and feeling like a traitor because of it. Yet if she succeeded in swaying Malcolm, she would not be a traitor—she would be a hero. That thought struck her dumb.
She would be a hero, a savior,thesavior, and finally she would have proved herself to Stephen.
Mary was so stunned by the thought of a final and complete exoneration that she barely heard the countess when she sent her off to begin her task with a small pat on the shoulder.
Mary had been given the perfect excuse to leave the tower. She rushed into the bailey, where servants scurried back and forth, dragging huge barrels of drinking water inside, as well as sacks of grain and dried foodstuffs. Others were moving casks of oil to the walls. If they were truly sieged, the oil would be boiled and placed on top of the walls and overturned on the attackers as they tried to scale them.
No attention was paid to Mary. She thought that she could probably walk right out of the bailey and across the drawbridge, lowered now for the constant influx and outflux of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular alike, but too much was at slake for her to take a chance of being recognized and stopped. Mary hurried towards the back of the keep where the kitchens and pantries were—where several young boys about her size usually worked. One of the lads was lugging a sack of cornmeal into the kitchen. Mary immediately drew him aside. She gave him a penny for his trouble, which delighted him, as well as a cape for his modesty. He assured her that he would have no difficulty replacing his clothing. Mary took everything he wore, his clogs, his hose, his rough wool tunic and his rope-braid belt, and most important, his torn, hooded cloak.
Tucking the clothing under her arm, Mary rushed past the kitchens and turned the corner. She needed absolute privacy to change into her disguise. An empty wagon provided it—or so she thought
She had just finished dressing and was carefully hiding her own garments in the wagon under some empty sacks when Isobel said, “Whatever are you doing, Lady Mary?”
Mary’s heart lurched with sickening force. She straightened, her visage undoubtedly a hundred shades of guilty red. Isobel was wide-eyed, taking in every inch of her appearance. “The cowl is too big,” she remarked.
Mary grabbed Isobel and pulled her into the shadows cast by the wagon. Her heart was pounding madly. What reasonable explanation could she offer to the clever girl for her ludicrous manner of dress? She realized she must appeal to the child’s sense of adventure, she must trust her with the truth.
“From a distance,” she said softly, “do I look like a lad?”
Isobel backed up, regarding her seriously. “Perhaps if you dirty up your face and hands. What are you doing?”
Mary pulled her close again. “Isobel, I need your help. I need your promise of secrecy.”
Suddenly Isobel’s expression became accusatory. “You are disguised so that you might run away!”
“Yes, but not for the reason that you are thinking!”
Isobel was white. “You would run away from all of us, from Stephen, now? Abandon us? I thought you were a friend!”
“Please listen to me!” Mary was desperate. “I am not running away!”
Isobel stared.
