“I’m sorry, Natalie.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. Just…let’s not keep secrets from each other anymore, okay?”
“Deal.”
They walked in silence for a while. Natalie expected to feel worse for telling him but for some weird reason she felt better, like a weight had been lifted from her.
She’d never told her housemates about Tanya. She’d never shared her feelings about it with anyone, preferring to try and deal with them alone. So why had she told him?
She had no answer for that.
Soon any chance of conversation was gone. The wind which had been growing steadily began to howl as they reached the next hilltop. It chased them down the other side, catching her breath and whipping it away from her whenever she opened her mouth.
At last the castle came into view. It was strange seeing it in its prime, so different to in her time. Some parts were the same of course, the battlements, the towers, the surrounding earthwork.
So much was different. The grass surrounding it was beaten flat by constant use, dirt paths stretching in different directions from the drawbridge.
Guards patrolled the entrance but there was no sign of the barefoot man.
“We might have made it before him,” Wallace said, motioning for them to duck behind a straggly bush of hawthorn. “Wait, look.”
The barefoot man came into view. He was walking out of the castle, dragging someone on a long rope behind him.
“It’s the captain,” Natalie said. “Oh no.” She realized where he was being taken. A gibbet had been set up on a stretch of flat ground about fifty feet from the drawbridge. “He’s going to kill the captain.”
Wallace turned to her, grabbing her hands and pressing the key into her palm. “Listen to me,” he said. “I will help the captain. You need to get to the dungeon and use the key. There’s a sally port over to the east. Head around those trees and down. No one will see you if you’re quick. Go!”
“I’m not going without you.”
He leaned toward her and kissed her. She felt the softness of his lips on her own for all too brief a moment and then he was shoving her toward the trees. “Go.”
She looked back but at that moment a guard yelled something, pointing her way. Terrified she’d been spotted, she ran for the trees, hiding behind them and clinging to the nearest trunk, panting for breath.
He’d kissed her. She closed her eyes and relived the moment. Sure, it was probably nothing to him but to her, it was everything. She relived it again and again, the smell of him, the softness so unexpected as he leaned his body against hers.
She slapped herself. This wasn’t the time to go all doe eyed. It was time to get moving. She was still in danger.
She was halfway down to the sally port when she stopped, skidding behind a clump of rose bushes. She looked out at the castle.
Wallace was running down the hillside, sword drawn. He crashed into the first group of men he saw, taking down two before they even had their swords out. The captain was being led up the steps to the gibbet.
They still had time.
She ran faster. The noose was slid around his neck. She looked back to Wallace only to find he’d been swamped by too many armed men. There was no way he could defeat them all.
She shouldn’t look. She should focus on getting home, shouldn’t she?
This was stupid. What was she about to do? Go down to the dungeon and go home?
As if.
She would spend the rest of her life regretting leaving him to his fate. She couldn’t do that. He was going to try and take on an entire castle to free the captain and then what would be his reward? Back in those chains if he was lucky.
He needed her help. He needed her. He’d only sent her away to try and make sure she was safe. Well, that wasn’t his decision to make. It was hers.
She ran across the open in time to see him being dragged up to the gibbet, a second rope hanging down ready for his arrival.
“Glad you could join us,” the barefoot man said to Wallace as the rope was shoved around his neck. “I knew you’d make it in time. Where’s the key?”
