“I’m not doing what you were,” she retorted, leaning her head out to glare at him. “I’m thinking out our plan.”
“Our plan?” Ian’s face lit up and he clambered back onto the wood next to her. “What is it? Are we going to climb the chimney to freedom?”
Isabel crossed her arms over her chest and favored her brother with a look of disgust. “And what good would that do? We’d end up stuck on the roof.”
He shrugged, squinting to peer up at the patch of blue. “Once we were up there we could wave and jump about until someone threw a rope to us.”
“Or shot us with an arrow.” Shaking her head, Isabel peered up again. “Nay, I think we should reach a stick up there and scrape down the ash.”
Now Ian screwed up his face with derision. “And why in blazes would we want to dothat?”
“Don’t say blazes—Mummy said ’tis a foul word.”
She ignored the even more foul sight of Ian’s tongue sticking out at her, instead ducking from the fireplace and pointing at the large chamber pot in the corner. “We could gather the ash in that, then hang it above the door and begin shouting and jumping, as if something was amiss…”
Ian’s scornful look faded. “And when the guards rush in to see what’s the matter, the ash will fall on their heads and blind them so that we can escape!”
“Well, the pot might hit the first guard,” Isabel conceded, “but I think we’ll need something else to stop the second one.”
Ian grabbed a large, knotted walking stick that was propped against the wall near the fireplace. “How about this? I can hide behind the door, and when the second guard comes in I can trip him with it.”
Isabel frowned, not at all certain that these plans fit in with the virtues that Mummy had always taught them. They were to say their prayers, tell no lies, be good to each other, and treat no other living thing with harm. ’Twas that last part that would be a problem now, Isabel thought, grimacing. But they weren’t really going to harm the men, just trick them so that she and Ian could escape.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Isabel sent a prayer up to God, asking Him if what they were about to do was bad. She stood very still, waiting for some kind of sign against it, anything to let her know that they should think of something else in order to escape.
There was no answer.
She whispered the prayer again, just to be sure.
Heaven remained quiet.
That was it, then. God must understand. Perhaps He even approved. With a sigh of contentment, she opened her eyes and gazed at her brother with a look of determination.
“All right, Ian,” she said firmly. “We’re going to do it. Now let’s get to work.”
Chapter 19
Gray swung his blade, hearing men scream and feeling the familiar resistance of flesh beneath his hacking charge. His mind blurred in the heat of killing, and his heart thumped madly. But ’twas not from bloodlust this day. Nay, this was something entirely different. For the first time since that awful day seventeen years ago, he battled his opponents with a sense of panic and desperation.
He had to get to Catherine.
Eduard’s men fought well and hard, and there were over three hundred of them to Gray’s nine score. Already the imbalance in numbers had taken its toll; many Ravenslock men lay sprawled, dead or wounded, across the grassy field leading to Faegerliegh Keep. It would take a blessing from on high to turn the tides in his favor.
Or perhaps a burst of pure will.
An opening appeared in the thick mass of warriors in front of him. Kneeing his stallion forward, Gray lent his fury to the attack, widening the gap. The path led directly to the gates of the keep, its entrance barred only by an iron portcullis. Whether out of rash complacency or lack of preparation, Eduard had left his defenses weak…and that was going to give Gray the only opportunity he needed.
“To the gates!” he roared over the din, ramming and slashing his way through Eduard’s knights. His men followed close behind, scrambling up the walls and scaling the tower that housed the gears to the mechanism. Several of them began to fight with the guards there, while three others pulled the lever back, raising the metal gate with a groaning screech.
A new flood of Eduard’s men stormed the area as Gray and his troops surged into the massive courtyard, filling the enclosure with the violent tumult of warfare. Gray pressed on. He’d almost reached the curved doorway leading into the main keep itself, when one of Montford’s knights caught him with a lance-blow.
Gray tipped off his stallion, rolling to his side and springing up in time to block the man’s charge and deal a killing strike himself. He watched his opponent fall and then, with one last glance at the battle raging behind him, he ducked through the entry-way and into the cool, dark silence of Faegerliegh Keep’s main corridor.
Yanking off his helm, he moved down the hall, his weight on the balls of his feet, his sword ready. Catherine hadn’t exaggerated; the hallways were intricate, twisting and turning, with several smaller corridors jutting off at odd angles. He kept to the main gallery, hoping to gain his bearings so that he could more swiftly locate Catherine or her children.
His ears thrummed in the silence, still numb from the clamor of battle, but he threw open every door as he passed, his eyes straining, searching, desperate. Some of the chambers revealed naught but empty disarray, while others sheltered huddled masses of servants and children, their faces streaked with tears or eyes wide with terror. He resisted the urge to stop and help them. Catherine and the twins needed him more right now. Continuing on, he darted his gaze to the left and right, alert to any movement, any shifting in the shadows.
Suddenly, the hair prickled at his nape and he stopped mid-stride. Something had moved in the corner of his vision. He was approaching the juncture of another hall; dust motes danced in the stream of sun from the glazed windows, swirling in a pattern that revealed a person hiding in the shadows.
