Chapter 4

4

" I s it her? Is it the witch?" Terrowin asked, moving what he thought might be a safe pace away.

"She has a fair sword arm for a harridan," Renn remarked.

Terrowin muttered, feeling for the wound through the bloodied slash in his sleeve.

"Is the cut deep?"

"Nothing a rag will not stop. Or mollify with a stoup of strong ale."

"Belay that thought a while, for we still have to find our way out of the castle."

"Who are you? What do you want here?"

The two knights looked at the witch. Her hair was still covering her face in a veil, concealing her features, but she was alert and watching them; her eyes were glittering through the tangled mane, prompting both men to keep their hands around the hilts of their swords.

"We come in search of the one who bears the mark of a rose on her thigh. The same mark that stains you."

A second puff of exasperation moved her hair. "A simple birthing mark can take the shape of whatever you happen to be looking for: a ball of thread, a cloud… a rose. It hardly warrants creeping into someone's bedchamber in the middle of the night. And through the wall, no less. I thought it was an infestation of rats."

"Do you always stand ready to slay rats with a sword?"

"I would slay any rat who stood on four legs or two, with whatever weapon was close to hand. Especially if that rat was clumsy enough to make such a clatter of noise."

Renn looked around the chamber. He saw a heavy gray wool cloak hanging on a peg by the door and went to fetch it. "We intend to take you away with us. Will you come quietly or do we have to sling you over a shoulder and carry you like a sack of grain?"

"Carry me where? "

Instead of answering, Renn asked, "Is your name Enndolynn Ware?"

She stopped twisting at her bindings and grew very still. "If I said no, would it send you scurrying back into the wall from whence you came?"

"Are you the witch, Enndolynn Ware?" Terrowin asked.

The glitter between the threads of silvery hair turned to glare at him. "If I was a witch, dolt, you would both be rolling on the floor clutching at your throats unable to breathe."

She turned back to Rennwick. "By whose command do you dare intrude upon my sanctuary?"

"You will have answers to your questions soon enough."

"I prefer to have them now."

Renn blinked at the boldness, not just because she was a woman bound to a chair and in no position to be so brazen, but because she did not sound as old as he had been led to believe. As he had already seen, she moved with speed and grace hardly expected of a withered old hag.

Exercising great caution, he ventured close enough to lift the gossamer veil of hair off her face and gingerly push it aside.

Having listened to Baldor's dreadful descriptions over the past few days, he was prepared to see wrinkled layers of skin, rotted teeth, and black eyes sunk deep in dark hollows. What he saw instead was a young, unblemished face. Her nose was straight and delicate with nary a wart or sprouted hair. Her mouth was finely shaped despite being set in a scowl and her eyes… aye, there might be an inkling of witchcraft there for they were such a pale, heavenly shade of blue they brought to mind the color of the sky at high noon.

Renn suffered the effect of her unshielded stare for a full count of ten before he was able to reclaim the wherewithal to drop his hand from her hair and step back again.

"I know nothing of any otherworldly powers you may or may not possess," Renn said, more for his own benefit than hers. "I only know we have been sent a long way to come and fetch you."

"Sent by whom?"

"By the one who sent us."

"And who sent you?"

"The one who ordered us here to fetch you," Terrowin said.

She skewered the lanky, red-haired knight with a chilling glance. "You do not look like common thieves. On the other hand, who else but a common thief would skulk through walls like vermin?" Her eyes flashed back to Rennwick. "And how did you get into the wall?"

"The same way we plan to take you out."

She narrowed her eyes and Renn could almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in her mind as she plotted how to resist.

"You already have one cheek that will bear an ugly bruise by morning," he warned quietly. "I have no qualms matching up the other."

"You would not dare."

"You hardly know me well enough to know what I would or would not dare."

"Nor do I plan to know you well enough," she said. She lunged forward out of the chair and ran for the door, casting aside the magically loosened strands of ribbon that had bound her wrists. When she reached it, she yanked on the latch but it did not turn. She yanked and twisted and tugged again, but it was locked fast. Too late she noticed the iron bolt had been pushed across the frame but before she could reach up and slide it back, a large hand was clamped over hers.

She whirled around to find Renn standing close enough she could have counted the individual stubbles of hairs on his jaw. Close enough she had to tip her head up to meet the cold dark eyes.

"If I scream, a dozen guards will break down the door."

Rennwick tipped his head and regarded her like a cat might regard a trapped mouse. "It appears to be a fairly stout door. It could take them a while to break through."

She huffed out a breath and snatched her hand down out of his grasp. "Would that I did indeed have the power to turn you both into toads!"

"If you intend to do so, Enndolynn Ware, do it now. Otherwise we will be on our way."

"Ellyn. My name is Ellyn, not Enndolynn, and I am known throughout York as Ellyn the Fletcher. I make the finest arrows in all of England. So you see, Sir Rogue, you have wasted your efforts on the wrong personage."

"I care not if you call yourself Eleanor, Eveline, or Bergamise. And we are not in York, we are in Nottingham and we have come to take you from this place… with or without your cooperation."

"Even if you have the wrong person?"

"If we have the wrong person, you will have the chance to defend yourself."

"Good gracious God, can a man of your antiquated years be so na?ve? There is no defense against being accused of witchcraft."

"I thought you said you were not a witch?"

"I am not. Yet I have obviously been accused."

He smiled and sprang the trap shut. "Only if you are truly Enndolynn Ware."

She had a retort that involved an impossible physical act but bit it back, for his tongue was quick and he was proving to be too clever by half.

Five, ten, fifteen long seconds of silence stretched out between them, during which time neither one moved a muscle. Then, from one blink to the next, her entire demeanor changed. Her hands uncurled from the fists they had formed and her lips went from being pressed into a thin, belligerent line to being full and pouty and soft.

"Might I, at the least, get dressed before I am stolen away?"

Renn shook his head. "We brought suitable clothing with us. You can dress once we are away from the castle."

He backed up a pace and drew the woolen cloak around her shoulders while Terrowin pinched out all but one of the tallow candles. The girl's eyes did not leave Rennwick's face as if she was studying every small detail so that whatever spell she did cast would be precise and awful.

"As you have already noted, the smallest sounds made within the walls will echo. Indeed, should you make a false step and bang your heel on the stones, or feel a spider on your cheek and squeal to draw attention… keep in mind that you would be far less of a burden hanging limp and senseless over my shoulder."

"You will pay and pay dearly for this affront," she warned softly.

"I shall add it to the long list of debts owed."

He took hold of her arm but still she balked and stood her ground. "Where are you taking me?"

"Away from here. As quickly and quietly as possible."

"If I agree to go without attempting to raise an alarm, will you tell me who has sent you to steal me away from here?"

"No."

She glared in response to the blunt answer.

"As I said: in due time, you will have your answers. For now, we are wasting time. Will you come quietly or do you prefer to ride my shoulder with a gag in your mouth?"

She pressed her lips thin again. "Lead the way, oh brave snatcher of helpless women."

Renn's eyelid twitched at the word helpless, but he tightened his grasp on her arm and led her toward the opening in the wall. Terrowin brought the lit candle and handed it off to Renn while he pulled the panel closed behind them. Rennwick led the way down the corkscrew staircase, for they had to descend in single file until the passage widened at the bottom, providing no opportunity for the girl to evade her captors. When the passage did allow for two abreast, Renn's hand was again around her arm to reinforce his previous threat of knocking her senseless if she did anything to betray their presence within the walls.

He needn't have worried. She was so surprised and so intrigued to find herself moving inside the walls of the castle, she followed his lead without a thought given to balking.

Not yet, at any rate.

The three moved in wraith-like silence along the secret passageways as the knights retraced their steps to the iron grate. There, the girl hesitated, but one look at Renn's face had her stepping carefully down after him into the dark void of the underground tunnels. Behind them, Terrowin set the grate back into place. At the bottom of the roughly hewn stone steps, another pair of candles were lit and handed back in line.

"Keep your head low," Renn warned, "and your arms tucked against your sides unless you want a layer of skin scraped off on the rocks."

A gasp and a starkly unfeminine curse told him the warning had come a step too late.

They worked their way through the narrow access and in short order arrived at the sally-port. Baldor was nowhere in sight as they emerged from the passageway, but a softly whistled chir-rup brought his head poking in through the garden door.

"Too tight in there, felt the walls closing in. Did ye find the hag?"

Rennwick stood straight and stretched the kinks out of his spine. "Aye, we found her."

"Behold the hag," Terrowin said, drawing the girl forward and holding the candle high over her head. Her eyes were watering from the black smoke cast off by the tallow, her face was covered with a caul of sticky cobwebs that made her skin look patched and flaking, her pale hair surrounded her shoulders like a ghostly mist.

Baldor made a quick sign of the cross and dropped a hand to the hilt of his dagger. "God save us and protect us from this unholy wickedness."

Renn was in the process of scraping webs off his own head and shoulders and glanced at Terrowin, who was trying hard not to laugh. "Pillock. We must make haste and take our leave before the moon rises and a sharp-eyed guard sees us crossing the bailey." He looked at the girl. "Need I warn you again?"

She merely glared her answer, after which her features were lost to the darkness as the candle was snuffed and the false door pushed close. The loosened brick was replaced and a handful of dirt brushed over the cracked mortar.

The outer bailey was crossed and the old postern found without incident.

"Have a care as you step beyond the gate," Rennwick said. "The ground is crumbling and a misplaced foot will send you off the edge. Step smartly to the right and hold fast to my hand."

She gave him another cantankerous look. "This is a senseless waste of time, Sir Rogue. Yours and mine. I know not who has sent you on this folly but he will soon be sorely disappointed when you bring him someone who is not who or what he believes her to be."

"That is not my determination to make. Now, if you please...?"

"It pleases me not at all," she huffed out on a breath, following him through the narrow portal. He vanished out into the darkness and for a moment she was left staring into a black void with nothing but a sheer drop to the rock-filled gully below. A hand came out of the void and, aware of Terrowin behind her to block any chance of retreat, she reached out and tentatively slipped her small fingers into her captor's much larger palm. Heart in throat, she stepped out onto to firm ground, aided by the sturdy arm that circled her waist.

Baldor was the last through and took a moment to push the gate shut and pull some vines across it.

With Renn cautioning the girl to stay close, the four made their way through the long grasses, hugging trees and scrub where they could, keeping a wary watch on the dark castle walls behind them. No shouts were heard, no alarms sounded and soon they were climbing the upward slope on the opposite side of the valley.

Roger had watched their progress and was waiting at the edge of the forest with the horses. "You took your sweet time, lads. I felt another spate of gray hairs sprouting forth as I counted the minutes." He nodded at the cloaked and hooded figure in their midst. "You were successful, I see. You have the hag."

"Oh, for pity's sake." She swept the hood back and glared at the four knights. "If you must steal me out of my bed in the dead of night, you should at least have the courtesy to address me by my name. It is Ellyn. Ellyn the Fletcher. And if you expect me to go even one step further, perchance you should share yours so I might know to call you by more than Horsedung One, Horsedung Two, Horsedung Three, and Horsedung Four."

"She can count," Baldor said in awe, as if that gave further proof she was a witch.

Roger, ever the mediator, stepped forward. "Forgive our rudeness, Ellyn the Fletcher. You may call me Roger," he said, deliberately leaving off any further means of identifying them. "The one ready to draw his blade and slice out your tongue is Rennwick. Terrowin is the one grinning like a jackanapes and the big lout who cannot count past the number of hours between meals is Baldor."

"Lofty names for thieves who skulk about in the dead of night. I expected one would be named Thumbless Jack or Witless Sneed."

"I have a wooden foot; will that make for an appropriate sobriquet?"

She could not stop herself from glancing down but saw nothing untoward in the pair of fine leather boots he was wearing.

"Enough nonsense," Renn said. "I intend to be many miles from here before dawn."

He snatched up Ellyn's hand and led her to his horse. He mounted with ease, unencumbered by armor or heavy weapons, and pulled her up onto the saddle behind him.

Ellyn had no choice but to wrap her arms around his waist and hold fast as he spurred the beast into a quick walk, then, as soon as the others were mounted and following, a purposeful canter that took them into the darkest heart of the forest.