Emeline stood, blushed violently, and ran quickly from the room.
She did not go to her mother’s chamber, nor search for her father or sister. She found a pageboy and gave orders for him to help Nicholas back to his quarters. Then she hurried outside.
It had stopped snowing some hours previously but there were places, banking up against the huge stone walls, where the white freeze lay unmarked and pure and beautiful. The air was spitefully fresh and the sky was low with threatened storm, but the stench of burning had been washed away and the world felt clean. Emeline would have wandered further, but she was cold and her feet were soon numb on the ice.
Beside the ruined Keep some of the rubble from within had been piled without in an ash grimed heap of stone, charred wood and tumbles of ruined utensils. Beside this, dark with interesting shadows, a narrow space wound between the sooty wall and the tossed rejections. Here Emeline squeezed herself, with no particular desire except seclusion. She did not wish to speak to those who would doubtless be looking for her, to be scalded or to be judged, yet had no place of her own for escape, neither bed nor chamber. So she hid in the dark and closed her eyes. She still wore only her spoiled bedrobe and her sister’s shift and the cinders in her hair remained, but it was the cold that bothered her at last. She was crawling out from the little crevice when she heard voices and the passing of horses. Being in no way presentable, she crept back and stayed where she was. Through a crack in the rubble she saw only one strip of daylight, but nothing interrupted her hearing.
The voices were young. A girl said, “Look, it’s only the central Keep, Adrian. So the fire didn’t spread. But what of Nicholas?”
A male voice answered her. “Isn’t that what we’re here to find out?”
Hooves on the cobbles, a small retinue with the jingle of harness and the snorting of horses. Over the busy clatter, the girl answered, “Badly injured, the messenger said. If he succumbs – and after dearest Peter – what then?”
“Not dead yet, they say,” sighed the man. “There’s no need to suppose it. Nicholas is hardly so fragile to expire at a whiff of smoke.”
“Nicholas fragile? Oh, hardly.” The girl sniffed. “We all know Nicholas. Irresponsible. Feckless. But robust enough I suppose. Strong enough to run away.”
“Run? He didn’t run fast enough for once, if he’s as injured as they say.”
The horses’ hooves were louder as they passed Emeline’s hiding place. She glimpsed the flutter of tabards, the swing of a fur trimmed sleeve, the kick of spurs and a cluster of sleek bay flanks as the retinue rode on towards the stable block. Only faint voices echoed back. “And will the new bride be sad, do you think? Too pretty to be a widow so soon.”
Then the man, “Married to that drunken wretch? She’d be better off widowed. First almost affianced to the other bastard, and now wed to this one. Each worse than the other, each as bad as their brute of a father.”
The girl’s last words, “Hush, someone will hear you, brother. And you must never ever say such things about Peter, especially now he’s – gone. You know how I – liked him. And Nick is a coward, but not a brute. Just a fool under all the teasing and the mockery.”
Then barely heard, the man’s voice, “We are here, are we not? And have ridden all the way back here in spite of natural exhaustion? That, my dear, is manners. I will always behave as I should. But I do not have to love my cousins.”
Distance claimed the voices beneath the retinue’s calls for the ostlers. So Emeline sat very small and cried soundlessly into the ashes.
It was a long time later when she finally reappeared and that was because she was hungry, of which mundane realisation she was heartily ashamed. She had considered hurling herself into the moat but decided it was far too cold and it would be unfair to ruin her sister’s best shift. She decided she would find something to eat first and then change into the oldest and most threadbare gown remaining to her before running away as best she could. How to achieve all this without being seen would be the greatest challenge, but the drawbridge was down, and the guards were certainly inside by the fire, probably with their noses in cups of ale. Once she approached the world beyond the castle, surely no one would see or stop her. She had it planned. It didn’t go to plan.
The make shift kitchens had been set up at the back annexe to the western wing, where a small additional bake oven had been enlarged and the old stone chamber transformed with a central fire and long tables. Emma found it quickly since the smoke, there being no existing flue nor chimney, and the busy file of kitchen boys, made its position clear. But as she entered, two small scullions regarded her with deep suspicion. One growled, “Might be a made up kitchen, nor has the proper space nor pots nor hearth, but there’s no dirty beggars allowed in here and that’s a fact. Off with you.”
Since the boy came only to her shoulder, Emeline stared back with dignity. “I am the Lady Emeline,” she said, “and therefore your mistress, so watch your manners. I am looking – that is, I missed dinner. At least I think I must have. Is it over?”
“An age past,” scowled the boy. “And you don’t look like no lady to me. Them guards ought to keep the village wenches out ’stead of snoring in the warm all day. You’ll get no crusts here, lest you come abegging for left overs after supper wiv the others. Now off wiv you.”
Emeline could smell roast meat now going cold on the great spread platters, waiting to be served for supper that evening. It was almost a full day she had not eaten but she felt too weak to argue, and knew she looked exactly like the beggarly slattern the boys had taken her for. Her only consolation was in the hope that her parents, the earl and her husband were all worried sick about her second disappearance.
The kitchen had been warm. The blast of snow born wind outside almost made her change her mind but she wrapped her arms around herself and ran fast for the arched gateway, the guards’ house and the great planked drawbridge.
A heavily muscled arm in chainmail stopped her half way across, and an enormous clammy hand grasped her arm, fingertips pinching hard. “Hey, mistress. Wot’s you doing then, and where’s you come from? Running away like a thief, and covered in soot. Bin crawling through them burned rooms, I expect, seeing just wot you could nick.”
“Certainly not. I am –” and gave up. She knew quite well her identity would not be believed. “Oh dear,” she said. “Look, I’ve nothing stolen on me. You can see I’m not carrying anything. Just let me go.”
“Gawd knows wot you might have up your shift, missus,” decided the guard.
Others came out from the shadows, interested in the capture. One said, “Let’s ’ave a look then, girl. Lift them skirts and show us wot you got.”
The first man shook his head. “Molesting some village trollop? The young lord would have your head on a spike, Noggins. Leave well alone.”
“Please let me go,” whispered Emeline.
“Not on your life,” decided the guard. “You comes along wiv me, girl, and we’ll see wot the earl thinks.”
“You’ll not be popular wiv his lordship interrupting him this hour o’ the day,” remarked another. “Still farting his midday bellyful, he is for sure, resting in his bed.”