“Do you swear?”
He wanted to shake her. “Yes, yes. Hurry. Get dressed in something simple. They’re going to know soon that I’ve escaped.”
“How did you-”
“Just hurry.”
She nodded and swung aside a tapestry to reveal a narrow servant’s door. “Go through,” she whispered. “Wait. I shan’t be long.”
He hesitated, wondering if he dared trust her. But he had little choice at this point. He went through the door, which she closed after him, and found himself in a musty space too tiny for comfort with shreds of old cobwebs that floated against his face like gossamer. The seconds ground by, each one an eternity. He leaned against the wall, feeling the coldness of it through his tunic.
The door snicked open and Sophia joined him in a faint rustling of cloth. Her hand groped across his sleeve to his wrist.
“There can be no light. We must stick close to the wall and not turn loose of each other. Come,” she said. “Make no sound, for some of the walls are thin.”
The darkness was total most of the way. Now and then their passageway had small open chinks in the wall mortar that let torchlight from some other area of the palace shine through. Sometimes Noel’s feet crunched over what sounded like small, brittle bones. They snapped like twigs.
He did not like the darkness, the dank, tomblike smell, the dusty cobwebs that touched his face and hands like insects, the tiny rat skeletons on the floor. Yet at the same time he kept telling himself that it could not be this easy. The secret way to the concealed treasury, the secret way of escape from the palace could not simply lead from this girl’s bedchamber.
The floor angled down after a while. He remembered the dungeons, and had to fight his reluctance to go near them.
Finally, after his legs were dragging with weariness and he felt they had gone at least a mile, Sophia stopped. “The end,” she said softly.
She pushed his hand out through the air, and his knuckles rapped against the wooden rungs of a ladder.
“We must climb,” she said. “Take care how you lift the trapdoor.”
He struggled up the ladder until his head bumped the trapdoor. It was lightweight, requiring little effort to shift. Easing it open cautiously, he heard a rhythmic crunching sound, heard rustles, stamps, and snorts, inhaled the aroma of horse droppings and straw.
They were in the stables. Specifically they were in one stall, and its occupant, looming large in the dapple of moonlight shining in through the windows, stood near the manger as though quite used to strange people appearing in his stall in the dead of night.
Sophia climbed out with more agility than Noel expected and helped him lower the trapdoor into place. She pushed straw across it and went to pet the animal while Noel peered out at the courtyard. A man carrying a torch went running across it, calling out to the sentries patrolling the wall.
“Damn,” said Noel. “We’re in for it now.”
“Find a torch,” she said, and drew the hood of her cloak over her shining hair. “We must get to the mews. This way.”
He snatched up an unlit brand soaked in pitch and followed her as she walked purposefully through the stables and out through a side door. A man ran past them in the darkness and gave Noel a shove.
“No time for dallying in the hay, man! There’s a villain escaped from the dungeons. A sorcerer, they say. Report to Sir Geoffrey at once and join the search.”
“Aye,” said Noel, and the man ran on, leaving him to follow Sophia with his tunic soaked in cold sweat and his nerves raw with strain.
They made their way to the wall’s southeast corner and entered a squat turret. The stairs spiraling up were made of wood and they swayed beneath Noel’s weight. The place smelled of vermin and bird droppings.
At the top of the stairs, Noel discovered why. Large windows all around filled the space with moonlight. Row after row of small perches held an array of falcons, hawks, eagles, and owls. Leather jesses adorned with bells hung from their legs, keeping them bound to their perches. The floor was littered with bits of fur, feather, and broken bones from hundreds of meals served here.
Some of the predators were hooded; others were not. The latter watched Noel with large yellow eyes, aware and silent in the darkness.
Sophia went to one of the birds and pulled off its hood. She stroked its proud head, preening it with her fingertip. “There, my beauty,” she crooned. “There, my love. Have you missed me?”
“For God’s sake,” said Noel, losing patience. “Are we getting away or visiting all your pets?”
“We need Sian,” she said, replacing the bird’s hood and untying her jesses. “She belongs to me. If necessary, she will hunt for us in the wild. There are some old weapons stored in that chest, if you want any.”
He wanted to protest about the bird, but she was right in saying they needed weapons. In silence he made a swift search and found a broadsword for himself that weighed nearly a ton. He fitted a dagger and a war axe into his belt also, and found a moth-eaten cloak that smelled as though cats had been born on it years ago.
“Ready,” he said, returning to Sophia. “Now what?”
She led him back downstairs. Outside, Noel could hear increased commotion. It sounded like the whole castle had been alerted. The searchers were coming closer all the time.
“Hurry,” he said.
Holding the hawk upon her left hand, now swathed in a heavy leather gauntlet, Lady Sophia pointed at the floor.
“Open the trapdoor. See the ring?”
He knelt and pulled it open.
“Light the torch,” she said.
“With what, my teeth?”
“Don’t you carry a spark box?” she said.
“A what-no, I don’t.”
“We can’t follow this passage if we can’t see. Do something.”
He peered outside and saw a torch burning at the base of the wall about halfway to the next corner. Noel’s spirits sank. He felt that if he went running out across the open, it would mean his end. Yet there were men running everywhere, most in stages of half dress, torches flaming in their hands. It looked pretty chaotic.
Not giving himself time to dally longer, he left the turret and ran along the length of the wall, stumbling over holes pitted in the ground. Two knights and a page boy converged on the same torch just before he did. One was there to replace it with a fresh one; the others lit their brands from it.
“Any luck?” asked one.
They all, Noel included, shook their heads.
One of the knights spat. “I’ll tell ye this, sirs. I didn’t change my allegiance to Sir Magnin’s banner just to spend my nights running about in search of some crazy varlet. It’s my bed I want.”
“It’s your head you’d better care about,” retorted one of the others. “His word is law, and he don’t care how much he puts you out.”
They scattered, Noel heading back toward the mews.
A hand grasped his shoulder. “Here, you. Act with some wits. You just came from that way. What’s the point of searching it again?”
Noel’s mouth was drier than powder. “I just-I heard something up in the turret. I couldn’t see, so I came to light the torch.”
“Oh?” The knight leaned close, and Noel could smell the wine fumes on his breath. “Then we’d better both check on this noise, eh, lad?”
“Uh, yes.”
Noel led the way, hoping Sophia was hiding. He opened the door and stepped into the darkness, the knight following right on his heels. Noel whirled and thunked the man between the eyes with the butt end of his torch. The knight staggered and fell.
Noel handed the torch to Sophia, who was standing there in plain sight, staring, and dragged the man inside
