The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [189]
One of the guards, settling his sword home, turned straight back into the guard-room, but the other hesitated, glancing up towards me. "My lord Brithael, is that right? We go off watch?"
I started slowly down the stairs. "Quite right. You can go. We'll send the porter for you when we want to leave. And above all, not a word of the Duke's presence. See to it." I turned to Ulfin, big-eyed on the stairs behind me. "Jordan, you go up to the chamber door yonder and stand guard. No, give me your cloak. I'll take it to the fire."
As he went thankfully, his sword at last ready in his hand, I heard Ralf crossing the guard-room below, underlining my orders with what threats I could only guess at. I went down the steps, not hurrying, to give him time to get rid of the men.
I heard the inner door shut, and went in. The guardroom, brightly lit by the torch and the blazing fire, was empty save for ourselves.
Ralf gave me a smile, gay and threadbare with nerves. "Not again, even to please my lady, for all the gold in Cornwall!"
"There will be no need again. You have done more than well, Ralf. The King will not forget."
He reached up to put the torch in a socket, saw my face, and said anxiously: "What is it, sir? Are you ill?"
"No. Does that door lock?" I nodded at the shut door through which the guards had gone.
"I have locked it. If they had had any suspicion, they would not have given me the key. But they had none, how could they? I could have sworn myself just now that it was Brithael speaking there, from the stairs. It was -- like magic." The last word held a question, and he eyed me with a look I knew, but when I said nothing, he asked merely: "What now, sir?"
"Get you down to the porter now, and keep him away from here." I smiled. "You'll get your turn at the fire, Ralf, when we have gone."
He went off, light-footed as ever, down the steps. I heard him call something, and a laugh from Felix. I stripped off my drenched cloak and spread it, with Ulfin's, to the blaze. Below the cloak my clothes were dry enough. I sat for a while, holding my hands before me to the fire. It was very still in the firelit chamber, but outside the air was full of the surging din of the waters and the storm tearing at the castle walls.
My thoughts stung like sparks. I could not sit still. I stood and walked about the little chamber, restlessly. I listened to the storm outside and, going to the door, heard the murmur of voices and the click of dice as Ralf and Felix passed the time down by the gate. I looked the other way. No sound from the head of the stairs, where I could just see Ulfin, or perhaps his shadow, motionless by the chamber door...
Someone was coming softly down the stairs; a woman, shrouded in a mantle, carrying something. She came without a sound, and there had been neither sound nor movement from Ulfin. I stepped out on to the landing, and the light from the guard-room came after me, firelight and shadow.
It was Marcia. I saw the tears glisten on her cheeks as she bent her head over what lay in her arms. A child, wrapped warm against the winter night. She saw me and held her burden out to me. "Take care of him," she said, and through the shine of the tears I saw the treads of the stairway outline themselves again behind her. "Take care of him..."
The whisper faded into the flutter of the torch and the sound of the storm outside. I was alone on the stairway, and above me a shut door. Ulfin had not moved.
I lowered my empty arms and went back to the fire. This was dying down, and I made it burn up again, but with small comfort to myself, for again the light stung me. Though I had seen what I wanted to see, there was death somewhere before the end, and I was afraid. My body ached, and the room was stifling. I picked up my cloak, which was almost dry, slung it round me, and crossed the landing to where in the outer wall was a small door under which the wind drove like a knife. I thrust the door open against the blast, and went outside.
At first, after the blaze