Uncle Robert’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I felt the same.’
He glanced around but Beatrice was leaving, hastening down the high street towards the Pot of Thyme. One look in the long, shadow-filled garden which ran round the back of the tavern told her Uncle Robert was not being fanciful. The place was full of men and these were not local peasants. They had travelled far; they were dressed in weather-stained doublets with cowls and hoods pulled over their heads. Many of them were well armed with bows and arrows, swords, daggers, clubs, billhooks and hauberks. They carried a black banner tied to a pole. Beatrice recalled the stories from her former life. How the southern shires were full of secret armies, of landless peasants waiting to raise the black banner of revolt and storm the King’s s castles. An attack upon Ravenscroft must be imminent. But what could she do? How could she warn Ralph?
In a trice Beatrice was running out of Maldon, taking the trackway to Ravenscroft. She seemed to move as if in one of her dreams, her feet hardly touching the ground, carried forward by her own will and her deep anxiety for Ralph. The towers and turrets of Ravenscroft came into sight but the track was blocked by the Minstrel Man with his ghastly-looking sumpter pony and, on either side, Crispin and Clothilde standing so coyly. Beatrice tried to go round them but they moved with her, stopping her.
Why can’t I go through? thought Beatrice. I am a spirit.
She moved into the field but they moved too. Beatrice recalled Brother Antony’s words: ‘As in life so in death’. She walked purposefully towards them.
‘Out of my way!’ she commanded.
‘Why, Beatrice, we’ve only come to talk.’ The Minstrel Man seemed taller, darker, more threatening.
‘What are you going to do?’ Beatrice mocked. ‘Kill me?’
The Minstrel Man was staring at her. Now he had the face of a wolf. His eyes never left hers. She felt a blast of fiery heat which weakened her determination.
‘Let me pass!’
‘If you’d only stay awhile.’ Clothilde came towards her, hips swaying. ‘Ralph is in danger.’
‘I know that! Get out of my way!’
‘We can still help.’ Crispin spoke. ‘We can intervene.’
Clothilde picked up the refrain. ‘We can intervene and save him. We know the great danger which threatens Ravenscroft, both from within and without.’
Beatrice was certain that whatever these offered would be wrong. She was weary of their games and tricks.
‘Where are Robin and Isabella?’ she taunted. ‘Or have you tired of them?’
The Minstrel Man clicked his tongue in disapproval. Beatrice took a step forward. A hot wind sprang up like a sudden gale, pressing her back.
‘Beatrice Arrowner!’ Brother Antony was standing behind them. He held his hands out. ‘Do you want to come forward?’
‘I can’t.’ She kept her eyes on those of the Minstrel Man. ‘But I want to come.’
The Minstrel Man glanced over his shoulder. He snarled something at Brother Antony who replied in a tongue Beatrice couldn’t understand.
‘Let her go,’ Brother Antony ordered.
The air was full of dancing lights. The Minstrel Man made a gesture as if wafting away some irritating flies but Beatrice walked forward. She was through them and in her haste to reach the castle she even ignored Brother Antony.
Darkness had fallen but Ralph was not in his chamber. Beatrice was aware of only one thought. He must be in danger, she had to help. She went to Midnight Tower, the scene of Father Aylred’s Mass, but it was empty. She became confused: the Mass had taken place at night but when she’d been in Maldon, darkness hadn’t fallen. Was this strange world she lived in beginning to break up? Had time itself become disjointed, like numbers out of place? Beatrice walked to the Salt Tower and climbed up to the second floor. She stared in horror. The chamber was filling with men coming quietly through the window door. Two archers lay dead on the ground, their souls had already gone. Beatrice fled the tower, across the overgrown garden to where Ralph was sitting beneath a tree. She tried desperately to speak to him, to warn him of what was coming. She did not know whether it was her or mere chance but Ralph noticed a light in the tower. Beatrice watched the unfolding drama: the attackers sallying out, Ralph’s cry, the brave defence by the captain of the guard and the consequent slaughter. All the time Beatrice stayed close to Ralph as if, by her very presence, she could protect him from all hurt. She was aware of the screams of the dying, the silver discs, golden spheres, the wraiths and those ghostly soldiers, all gathering on the battleground to meet the souls of the fallen. But she had only one thought, the protection of Ralph. She was with him when he was taken to Adam and Marisa’s chamber and when he threw his quill down and began to sob. She tried to comfort him, to understand what had happened but she could not. She had to accept the truth of Brother Antony’s words. She could observe, she could react but she could not enter the heart and mind of even the man she loved so much.
The next morning Ralph dressed and went down to the hall to break his fast. Then he wrote a quick note and handed it to the captain of the guard drilling his men on the green outside the keep. The garrison were in good heart after their victory the previous night. The soldier looked puzzled but Ralph refused to answer his questions.
‘Just give that to Sir John. Beg him, and I mean beg him, to do exactly what I have asked.’
Ralph went up into Midnight Tower. Adam and Marisa were already preparing for the day’s work. Marisa was dressed; she said she intended to go into Maldon to see what was happening there.
‘Is that safe?’ Ralph asked. ‘I’d much prefer you to come with me.’
‘Where are you going?’ Adam, sitting on the edge of the bed, paused in pulling his boots on.
‘I want you to come to Devil’s Spinney with me. Brythnoth’s cross is there.’
Both Adam and Marisa looked at him as if he had lost his wits.
‘Are you sure?’ Adam finished pulling his boots on. ‘You didn’t receive a knock on the head last night?’
‘I know Brythnoth’s cross is in the spinney. I want you to help me find it.’ Ralph moved to the door. ‘Are you coming or aren’t you?’
‘We’re coming,’ they chorused.
Adam wrapped on his war belt, picked up a small arbalest from the corner. ‘Just in case some of our visitors from last night are hiding in the spinney, though I suspect they are now over the hills and miles away.’
Ralph tapped his own sword and dagger. ‘We’ll be safe enough. But don’t tell anyone where we are going.’
A short while later they crossed the heathland, Ralph striding ahead, Adam and Marisa following behind. They had fallen silent as if they couldn’t believe what Ralph had told them. They entered the spinney. Ralph paused and crouched near a corpse left lying in the gorse and brambles. The man was dressed in a brown leather jerkin, patched leggings. His boots and belt had been removed. A terrible gash to the side of his head had drenched his cold face in blood.
‘One of the attackers from last night,’ Ralph commented, getting to his feet. ‘Dead and gone, there’s little we can do for him. We’ll tell Sir John and his corpse can be buried with the rest in the common grave.’
He entered the trees, pushing through the gorse, startling the birds which rose in flurries and cries of annoyance at this early-morning intrusion. The sun had risen but it was weak and watery, hidden by the mist hanging like a ghostly curtain over the flat Essex countryside. Ralph paused in the small clearing.
‘Stay here,’ he told Adam and Marisa.
He strode to the oak trees and stopped before the fifth in line from his left. He walked round its huge trunk, staring carefully up, but could see no crack, crevice or hollow. The hard bark was unbroken and even. If it wasn’t this one, thought Ralph, it must be the fifth from his right.
‘Adam! Marisa!’ he called. ‘Come over here!’
The two walked across.
‘I believe Cerdic hid Brythnoth’s cross in one of these oak trees. Remember the riddle he told the Danes? That he had hidden it in an altar sacred to his god and theirs?’
‘The oak tree!’ exclaimed Adam. ‘Sacred to the ancient priests, while Christ died on the wood of the cross.’
Ralph clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Exactly. We must search the trunk of each of these oaks very
