She lifted the bar, her arms straining. It bumped and made a noise, and the sobbing halted abruptly. Rhona could almost feel whoever it was on the other side, straining, listening.
“Is someone there?” she asked softly and tried the latch. The door swung to with remarkable ease.
And a small, wild thing launched itself at her, catching her in the midriff and making her cry out in shock and pain. She wrapped her arms about it, wrestling a moment, and, more through good luck than any skill on her part, brought the creature to the floor. She fell on top of it, using her weight to hold it there.
It fought. It muttered. But it was pointless, and after a moment it seemed to accept that fact and gave up the struggle. Panting heavily, Rhona searched for and found a face. It was a child. A child with a mop of dark hair and a pale, damp, tear-streaked face. It sniffled as she half sat up, pulling it into the better light from another arrow slit. Pale skin, dark lashes and hair, and big, big eyes.
They stared at each other in the half-darkness.
“Lady Rhona?” the child said shakily. “Have you come to rescue me?”
It was Raf, Lady Jenova’s son. With a horrible sinking feeling, Rhona thought she knew what had happened. Whoever it was who was Jean-Paul’s spy at Gunlinghorn had brought him here, and now they planned to use him in their plot. They would force Jenova to their will with threats against her child, and Lord Henry would be powerless to stop them.
Suddenly Rhona had had more than enough. Oh, she had had enough before, but she had been content to stay in her room and cry and wail and wish for someone strong to come and rescue her. Now she was tired of that. She had waited long enough, and no one had come. It was time to do something for herself.
“I do believe I have come to rescue you, Raf,” she said, answering his question. “Fetch your cloak and rug up. We are leaving this place and returning to Gunlinghorn.”
Raf sat up and gave her the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. “Good,” he said with a relieved sigh. “I was hoping you would say that. Agetha tricked me, you know. I would never have gone with her if she had told me the truth. I trusted her.”
His eyes filled with tears, and Rhona gave him a quick hug. “She is a stupid girl, Raf. Don’t worry, I am sure that Lady Jenova and Lord Henry will be very angry with her when they find out. She will be sorry for what she did then, won’t she?”
Raf thought a moment, and then a small grin tugged at his mouth. “Aye, I s’pect she will.”
Rhona waited while he put on his cloak, and then she took his hand, leading him quietly down the stairs. Alfric slept in a room off the great hall. Rhona placed Raf safely behind a tapestry and went to scratch on his door. It took some time for him to wake, but eventually his face peered at her through the opening, his eyes bloodshot.
“Rhona? Are you all right? I was so worried that—”
“No, I am all right, brother.” She put her hand on his arm and squeezed to silence him, glancing over her shoulder. There was probably no one listening, but she had long ago learned never to take chances.
“You must help me. I have something I must deliver to Gunlinghorn. A small parcel.”
His face froze. He blinked. He understood her, Rhona thought with a sinking feeling. He must know that the child had been brought here and held captive until Jenova agreed to marry Baldessare.
“Rhona,” he groaned. “Do not say you are thinking to—”
“What is being done here is very bad, Alfric,” she said in her sternest voice. “You know that I am right. And I am tired of being afraid. I am very, very tired of it. So I am going to do what is right for a change, and you are going to help me. We will use ‘it,’ Alfric. He will sleep for hours and hours. Jean-Paul is in the chapel—we will bar the door so he cannot get out. And we will both of us leave this place and never return.”
Alfric swallowed. Then he blinked. “W-where will we go?” he whispered, sounding not much older than Raf.
“Gunlinghorn, first of all, and after that, wherever we wish. And we will never come back here again.”
“What of our inheritance?” he asked, suddenly sounding more like his father’s son. “I am heir to Hilldown Castle and my father’s other estates. I am the next Lord Baldessare.”
Rhona leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “When it becomes known what our father has done, the king will take everything he owns and throw him in jail. Do you want to join him there, and be heir to that?”
Alfric shuddered.
“Then help me.”
She met his eyes in the light of the torch and saw his decision even before he spoke.
“I seek words with Lord Baldessare!”
The torches held by his men flared, and Reynard narrowed his eyes against the heat and the light. The walls of Hilldown Castle were a dark mass, interspersed with more torches and the shapes of moving men. He had ridden hard to get here, and now he waited.
And waited.
“We know,” a voice called back. “My Lord Baldessare has been told.”