The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [53]
The big gate shut behind them. The chain rattled, but the dog stayed silent. I heard the men's steps crossing the yard, then the house door shut on them.
3
Even if I had dared to risk the torchlight and the dog, to scramble over the bank behind me and run the twenty paces to the gate, there would have been no need. The god had done his part; he had sent me warmth and, I discovered, food.
No sooner had the gate shut than I was back inside the shippon, whispering reassurance to the horse as I reached to rob him of the cloak. He was not sweating much; he must have galloped only the mile or so from the town, and in that shed among the crowded beasts he could take no harm from cold; in any case, my need came before his, and I had to have that cloak. It was an officer's cloak, thick, soft, and good. As I laid hold of it I found, to my excitement, that my lord had left me not only his cloak, but a full saddle-bag as well. I stretched up, tiptoe, and felt inside.
A leather flask, which I shook. It was almost full. Wine, certainly; that young man would never carry water. A napkin with biscuits in it, and raisins, and some strips of dried meat.
The beasts jostled, dribbling, and puffed their warm breath at me. The long cloak had slipped to trail a corner in the dirt under their hoofs. I snatched it up, clutched the flask and food to me, and slipped out under the barrier. The pile of brushwood in the corner outside was clean, but I would hardly have cared if it had been a dung-heap. I burrowed into it, wrapped myself warmly in the soft woollen folds, and steadily ate and drank my way through everything the god had sent me.
***
Whatever happened, I must not sleep. Unfortunately it seemed that the young man would not be here for more than an hour or two; but this with the bonus of food should be time enough to warm me so that I might bed down in comfort till daylight. I would hear movement from the house in time to slip back to the shed and throw the cloak into place. My lord would hardly be likely to notice that his marching rations had gone from his saddle-bag.
I drank some more wine. It was amazing how even the stale ends of the barley bread tasted the better for it. It was good stuff, potent and sweet, and tasting of raisins. It ran warm into my body, till the rigid joints loosened and melted and stopped their shaking, and I could curl up warm and relaxed in my dark nest, with the bracken pulled right up over me to shut out the cold.
***
I must have slept a little. What woke me I have no idea; there was no sound. Even the beasts in the shed were still.
It seemed darker, so that I wondered if it were almost dawn, when the stars fade. But when I parted the bracken and peered out I saw they were still there, burning white in the black sky.
The strange thing was, it was warmer. Some wind had risen, and had brought cloud with it, scudding drifts that raced high overhead, then scattered and wisped away so that shadow and starlight broke one after the other like waves across the frost-grey fields and still landscape, where the thistles and stiff winter grasses seemed to flow like water, or like a cornfield under the wind. There was no sound of the wind blowing.
Above the flying veils of cloud the stars were brilliant, studding a black dome. The warmth and my curled posture in the dark must (I thought) have made me dream of security, of Galapas and the crystal globe where I had lain curled, and watched the light. Now the brilliant arch of stars above me was like the curved roof of the cave with the light flashing off the crystals, and the passing shadows flying, chased by the fire. You could see points of red and sapphire, and one star steady, beaming gold. Then the silent wind blew another shadow across the sky with light behind it, and the thorn trees shivered, and the shadow of the standing stone.
I must be buried too deep and snug in my bed to hear the rustle of the wind through grass and thorn. Nor did I hear the young man pushing his way through the barrier that the porter