“Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn’t that so, mistress?”
“We’ll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn’t it the life we’ve shared?”
“You’ve no fear, then, of bad memories, mistress?”
“What’s to fear, father? What Axl and I feel today in our hearts for each other tells us the path taken here can hold no danger for us, no matter that the mist hides it now. It’s like a tale with a happy end, when even a child knows not to fear the twists and turns before. Axl and I would remember our life together, whatever its shape, for it’s been a thing dear to us.”
A bird must have flown across the ceiling above him. The sound had startled him, and then Axl realised that for a moment or two he had actually been asleep. He realised too there were no more woodcutting noises, and the grounds were silent. Had the warrior returned to their chamber? Axl had heard nothing, and there were no signs, beyond the dark shape of the table, of anyone else asleep on Edwin’s side of the room. What had Father Jonus said after examining Beatrice and concluding with his questions? Yes, she had said, she had noticed blood in her urine, but he had smiled and asked something else. You see, princess, Axl had said, I always told you it was nothing. And Father Jonus had smiled, despite his wounds and his exhaustion, and said, you can go to your son with nothing to fear. But these had never been the questions Beatrice had feared. Beatrice, he knew, feared the boatman’s questions, harder to answer than Father Jonus’s, and that was why she had been so pleased to learn the cause of the mist. Axl, do you hear that? She had been triumphant. Axl, do you hear that? she had said, her face radiant.
Chapter Seven
A hand had been shaking him, but by the time Axl sat up the figure was already on the other side of the room, bending over Edwin and whispering, “Quickly, boy, quickly! And not a sound!” Beatrice was awake beside him, and Axl rose unsteadily to his feet, the cold air startling him, then reached down to grasp his wife’s outstretched hands.
It was still the depths of night, but voices were calling outside and surely torches had been lit in the courtyard below, for there were now illuminated patches on the wall facing the window. The monk who had awoken them was dragging the boy, still half asleep, over to their side, and Axl recognised Father Brian’s limping gait before his face emerged from the dark.
“I’ll try and save you, friends,” Father Brian said, his voice still a whisper, “but you must be quick and do as I say. There are soldiers arrived, twenty, even thirty, with a will to hunt you down. They already have the older Saxon brother trapped, but he’s a lively one and keeps them occupied, giving you a chance of escape. Be still, boy, stay with me!” Edwin was moving to the window, but Father Brian had reached out and clasped his arm. “I mean to lead you to safety, but we must first leave this chamber unseen. Soldiers cross the square below, but their eyes are on the tower where the Saxon still holds out. With God’s help they won’t notice us go down the steps outside, and then the worst will be behind us. But cause no sound to make their gazes turn, and take care not to trip on the steps. I’ll descend first, then signal your moment to follow. No, mistress, you must leave your bundle here. Let it be enough to keep your lives!”
They crouched near the door and listened to Father Brian’s footsteps descend with agonising slowness. Eventually, when Axl peered cautiously through the doorway, he saw torches moving at the far end of the courtyard; but before he could discern clearly what was going on, his attention was drawn by Father Brian, standing directly below and signalling frantically.
The staircase, running diagonally down the side of the wall, was mostly in shadow except for one patch, quite near the ground, lit up brightly by the nearly full moon.
“Follow close behind me, princess,” Axl said. “Don’t look across the yard, but keep your eyes on where your foot may find the next step, or it’ll be a hard fall and only enemies to come to our aid. Tell the boy what I’ve just said, and let’s have this behind us.”
Despite his own instructions, Axl could not help glancing across the courtyard as he went down. On the far side, soldiers had gathered around a cylindrical stone tower overlooking the building in which the monks had earlier had their meeting. Blazing torches were being waved, and there appeared to be disorder in their ranks. When Axl was halfway down the steps, two soldiers broke away and came running across the square, and he was sure they would be spotted. But the men vanished into a doorway, and before long Axl was gratefully ushering both Beatrice and Edwin into the shadows of the cloisters where Father Brian was waiting.
They followed the monk along narrow corridors, some of which may have been the same as those taken earlier with the silent Father Ninian. Often they moved through complete darkness, following the rhythmic hiss of their guide’s dragged foot. Then they came into a chamber whose ceiling had partly fallen away. Moonlight was pouring in, revealing piles of wooden boxes and broken furniture. Axl could smell mould and stagnant water.
“Take heart, friends,” Father Brian said, no longer whispering. He had gone into a corner and was moving objects aside. “You’re nearly safe.”
“Father,” Axl said, “we’re grateful to you for this rescue, but please tell us what’s occurred.”
Father Brian continued clearing the corner, and did not look up as he said: “A mystery to us, sir. They came this night without invitation, pouring through the gates and through our home as if it were their own. They demanded the two young Saxons lately arrived here, and though they made no mention of you or your wife, I wouldn’t trust them to treat you gently. This boy here, they would clearly wish to murder, as they do even now his brother. You must save yourselves and there’ll be time later to ponder the soldiers’ ways.”
“Master Wistan was a stranger to us only this morning,” Beatrice said, “yet we’re uneasy making our escape while a terrible fate threatens him.”
“The soldiers may yet come on our heels, mistress, for we left no barred doors behind us. And if that fellow bravely buys your escape, even with his own life, you must grasp it gratefully. Under this trap-door is a tunnel dug in ancient times. It will take you underground into the forest, where you’ll emerge far from your pursuers. Now help me raise it, sir, for it’s too heavy for my hands alone.”
Even for the two of them, it took some effort to raise the door till it stood up at a steep angle before them, revealing a square of deeper blackness.
“Let the boy go down first,” the monk said, “for it’s years since any of us used this passage and who knows if the steps haven’t crumbled. He’s nimble-footed and could take a fall better.”
But Edwin was saying something to Beatrice, and she now said: “Master Edwin would go to Master Wistan’s aid.”
“Tell him, princess, we might help Wistan yet by making our escape through this tunnel. Tell the boy what you must, but persuade him to come quickly.”
As Beatrice spoke to him, a change seemed to come over the boy. He kept staring at the hole in the floor, and his eyes, caught in the moonlight, seemed to Axl at that moment to have something strange about them, as though he were steadily coming under a spell. Then even as Beatrice was speaking, Edwin walked towards the trap-door and without looking back at them, stepped into the blackness and vanished. As his footsteps grew fainter, Axl took Beatrice’s hand and said: